


buried a hatchet (it’s coming up lavender)

by erce3



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Happy Ending, Mutual Pining, Post-Season/Series 03, but not graphic, content warning: some violence & gore, this is a fun fic. i promise....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2020-08-14 05:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20186704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erce3/pseuds/erce3
Summary: “I don’t need you anymore,” Catra says coldly.“I don’t care,” replies Adora. Her voice wavers for a moment, and then steadies. “We’re the only two people on this entire planet.”*or, au where catra and adora get stuck in the portal instead of angella





	1. forget-me-nots

Our souls paused like kites in the salt-grass & I'm sorry but what you said about me was always about you. 

STANDING AT DAWN WITH MY MOTHER in _Knock_, Melissa Atkinson Mercer 

One day, tens of millions of years from now, someone will find me rusted into the mud of a world they have never seen, and when they crumble me between their fingers, it will be you they find. 

THE STONE GODS, Jeanette Winterson

A lover? Maybe. Something tender, anyway. But tender like a bruise.

THE WINNER'S KISS, Marie Rutkoski

_ Adora turns sixteen just as a snowstorm comes in. She sits propped up against some pillows and her palm cupping her chin, watching the snow billow by. She’s always liked winter and the cold that flushes her cheeks, that numbs the tip of her nose. Behind her, Mara is making hot chocolate, and Razz is sneaking marshmallows into her mouth, and the presents on the kitchen table are beginning to become too tempting to let sit any longer. _

_ Her phone buzzes. _ hbd, _ writes Catra, short and to the point. _

Wow you do care about me,_ Adora writes back. Catra’s response is almost immediate: _ehhh idk.

_ She laughs, and the sound is clear and bright, and everything is perfect, and then her phone buzzes again. _ she-ra, _ says the text message from Catra. Adora blinks. Her sight goes fuzzy; the world splinters and glows purple and white at the edges. _ SHE-RA. _ She checks the text again, and it says, _ ur okay ig _ and she smiles warily, confusedly—_

Adora gasps awake. She’s lying in tall grass, and she drags her hands down her face, trying to chase after her dream as it fades from her memory. She stills and thinks about it for a moment, feels her pounding head for a second, concentrating. _ What’s hot chocolate? _ She scrubs at her eyes and tries to focus on where she is.The sky is dark and starry; the detail makes her pause and narrow her eyes in thought. 

She thinks she recognizes this place — the tower she built for Light Hope is somewhere near here; yet when she scans the area, there is something entirely unfamiliar about it. The shape of the clouds, the stars dotting the sky all lend to the eerie sense of a place she knows and doesn’t know, like she’s in a dreamscape, like she’s reimagining Etheria. Her brows furrow then —

Something is wrong. She isn’t dreaming. She pinches herself, sucks in a deep breath. _ MARA. _ Where is she? Her memory flickers: a force captain badge; Catra, distorted and half-destroyed by the void; the sword at the center of a vortex. _ SHE-RA. _Why — what is going on? Why isn’t she with — 

“Oh,” says Adora aloud to the empty space around her. It doesn’t even echo; once she’s said it, the landscape is silent again, like nothing has been said at all.

Her eyelids slide shut, and behind them, images continue to flash and fade in short bursts. Closing the portal, the alternate reality, Catra’s attack, Glimmer remembering her, knocking Catra out, going after the sword alone, claws at the last moment scraping her ankle, a final look before — not getting to say goodbye — not —

She sucks a breath in and stops herself there, concentrates on the _ here_, like Bow taught her to do when she gets overwhelmed. It’s weirdly silent here. There is no birdsong. There aren’t any cicadas humming, or crickets chirping, just the faint rustling of the wind and her own breaths. “I’m alone,” she tries, just to see how it sounds. It sounds empty and unconvincing. “There’s nothing here,” she says instead, which feels just as much like a lie as before. It’s like she doesn’t believe herself, doesn’t believe her eyes or ears.

She stretches out in the field and looks up again. _ Stars. _ In the morning, she thinks, she will get up and go looking for food. Maybe in the morning she will learn a thing or two about this place and how to get home. Because there must be a way to get home. Her fingers clench at the grass and each pull up handfuls at the thought. She jerks them up and sprinkles them onto her stomach.

The stars twinkle above her, and the moon is bright and full.

How can anyone sleep with lights as bright as these? How can she sleep at all, having watched reality unfurl around her?

It doesn’t matter; she lies there and thinks and tries to sleep, and a couple sleepless hours later, she’s still awake, aching. Her back, her neck, her arms — all sore from the night in the grass, all sore from another lifetime ago. She’s bruised from her fight with Catra, from — she’s trying not to think about what. 

She needs something to do. She needs a plan. Instead, she pulls herself up and shouts, “HELLO?” and listens for an echo, something, and gets nothing at all.

“This is what you get, Adora,” she tells herself, “for playing hero.” She gestures at the empty landscape. A stretch of nothingness. It’s ridiculous to be talking to herself, to be shouting to the world at large, to be doing anything other than moving. She needs water, food, a place to sleep.

She massages her neck and sits up. Her head rushes; she looks up at the sky and waits for the dots in her vision to fade. Her brows furrow as she begins to get inklings of a plan. _ Survival first, _ she thinks as she begins to stand and feels her knees wobble and realizes she has nothing to steady herself except her own determination. 

Survival first and then processing. From what Entrapta said, Adora has an eternity to process. She tries a baby step — her right leg shakes underneath her weight and she has to will herself to stay upright. “Come on,” she chants to herself, “come on come on come _ on, _ you’re not going to starve here—”

Another step. Her eyes slide closed for a moment and she forces them back open. She doesn’t have another choice. Adora is good at this, at survival, has been trained to march since she was a baby — she can do this. She can do this. She takes a deep breath in and begins to walk.

Adora keeps walking. She gets more numb with each step; the further she walks, the more the world comes into focus. She’s certain that she’s in the field she travelled to and fixed for Light Hope — above her, stones with markings are floating through the air. A landmark, good — she knows where she is, knows where to go. With a stone shard, she makes a makeshift compass to check her trajectory, and then continues walking.

And keeps walking.

And keeps walking.

Dimly, she recognizes that nightfall is coming; she has felt neither a pang of hunger nor the dry scratchiness of insistent thirst in the back of her throat. Something is wrong — for a moment, an uneasy sense overtakes her, but she shakes it off. She needs to keep going; her feet are blistering, and she’s _ tired, _ but she needs to find shelter, something.

She _ needs _ to keep going. All Adora has left is this stupid plan. She has to stick to it. She has to.

_ “Hey, Adora,” says Catra, face half in shadow. Adora startles, then laughs as Catra steps into the light, completely normal, freckled, wearing cat ear headband and a matching tail. She’s got one eyebrow raised, a half-smile quirking up the left corner of her mouth. She’s holding a bottle of wine in her right hand. _

_ “You made it!” She smiles. Her evening is perfect now — a halloween party with her favorite people. _

_ “Like I wouldn’t have come,” Catra snorts, and pushes past Adora and into the party. “What’s your costume, by the way? She-Ra?” _

_ The world stutters, stops — a flash of purple spiderweb cracks over reality — _

_ “What did you say?” _

_ “Thor knockoff? You need to get your ears checked.” _

_ Adora laughs, hollow. “Right! The music’s just loud.” She looks down at her own costume. _ SHE-RA. _ The sandals, the white dress — _ MARA. _ What’s going on? Why is she — when she looks back up at Catra, there’s something wrong with her face shrouded in darkness, flickering, corrupted— _

_ Catra lunges forward. “Adora, are you—” _

_ MARA. SHE-RA. It’s happening again. _

Adora gasps awake. She must have fallen asleep; she’s curled in on herself and the light is blinding. _ Halloween. _ Another weird dream. She cracks her neck, which is still sore. Everything still aches. “I hate it here,” she mumbles to no one in particular, and stretches out in the grass.

So much for her plan.

She tries to sit up again, and her vision swims with dots again. She doesn’t recognize where she is, which way she was going. She’s — she’s lost. It was so much easier to navigate from the air. Everything screams in protest as she tries to stand; she stumbles with the first step she’s trying to take.

She can’t _ do it. _ She can’t keep walking. Her own body is against her.

She crumples, curling onto the ground. Everything hurts. She can’t keep walking, and she can’t think of a better plan. It takes approximately ten days to die of dehydration; it takes less than that to lose her mind. She only has nine days left. She can’t move. Her fists curl, short nails digging into her palms.

Her memories return, unbidden. _ “This is all your fault,” snarls corrupted Catra. _

She’s going to die. The thought is the clearest one she’s had since she got here, and it makes her throat constrict; she takes a balled fist and digs it against the ground to try and stop the tears. Her eyes screw up, body rocking rhythmically. She’s going to die, and she’s never going to see anyone she loves ever again.

_ “You did this to me,” Catra continues. “You destroyed the world.” _

_ The feeling of her fist against Catra’s cheek; Catra’s nails scraping her ankle as she grasps the sword — _

She’s never going to get to say goodbye.

That’s what does it: she melts into the ground and bursts into tears, even though she knows it will dehydrate her, even though she knows at this point she’s letting herself die. “I can’t do this anymore,” she sobs into the tall grass, rocking as she does so. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t.”

There’s no one to help her. There’s no one. She lies like that, sobbing, hysterical, alone, alone, alone.

Eventually she dries her tears, gets up, figures out which way she needs to go using her own shadow, and continues to walk. It’s all she can do.

_ The paint’s starting to chip on the window. Adora keeps saying she wants to paint it “sea foam” — not even a real color, in Catra’s opinion — to match the view outside. Catra wants to repaint it white. It’s a stupid argument they keep getting into over the takeout they eat on the dusty, bare living room floor. _

_ Everything is simple, easy, perfect: the small town charm, the cheap house falling apart. The summer heat, coming in waves, and Adora in jean cut-offs and brandishing a hammer. Sweat rolls off Catra’s forehead. She ties up her bushy hair with a red bandana ‘cause her hair ties are stuck in some box somewhere. _

_ At night, they lie out in the grass and look at the stars. Adora knows all the names for them. She points out the constellations, too, and tells Catra their stories, even though Catra’s heard them a thousand times by now. “What’s that one,” she says to Adora, pointing in no specific direction. _

_ “She-Ra,” says Adora. _

_ Chills down her spine. “What did you just say?” _

_ “I said that I couldn’t tell where you were pointing.” _

_ “Oh.” Catra shifts her gaze up and scrubs at her eyes before letting them focus again. The stars align to write _ MARA _ and her vision goes fuzzy for a moment. No. No no no. _ MARA. SHE-RA. _ No. No, everything is perfect, no— _

Catra wakes up with a pounding heart, sore ribs, and a terrible headache. She has a brief coughing fit as sand falls into her mouth and reaches to grasp something solid, only to find that the ground is just dunes and loose gravel. She heaves a deep breath and scrubs at her eyes. She looks up; her vision is hazy and takes a moment to focus. When it does, though, she’s distracted by pinpricks of light in the sky: _ stars, _ Adora called them once, right before she left. _ Stars, _ she’d called them in her dream. Catra swallows. 

Where is she?

Catra dusts herself off. Her cheek is bruising from where Adora punched her; the right side of her body is full of pins and needles. She flexes the claws in her right hand, watches as they shine in the moonlight, and, satisfied with the knowledge that she’s whole again, sits up and surveys the landscape. 

It doesn’t flicker, nor crack — it stays steady in her line of sight. She gets up slowly, methodically: onto her knee, and then on two feet, and uses a nearby cliff face to steady herself when she sways. She’s pretty sure she’s in the Crimson Waste; funny that she’d end up here, alone —

She shakes her head to clear it and looks around. She’s pretty sure she knows the way back; with a decisive nod, she begins to walk.

Adora’s half-dead by the time she reaches the edge of the Whispering Woods, but to see them rejuvenates her all the same. She knows where she is. Where she’s going. Finally. Finally—

“Hey, Adora.”

She whirls and sure enough, above her is Catra, the only person she’s seen for miles — perhaps the only person on this whole planet — and something in her throat constricts again. Anger surges up inside her, makes her fingers curl. _ This is all your fault, Adora. _ “Catra,” she says, eyes narrowing.

Catra blinks, clearly surprised, but wipes the expression off her face as quickly as it’d flashed over it. “What’s wrong?” she purrs. “Upset that I’m stuck here with you?” She jumps down and stalks towards Adora, a half-smile over her lips, an almost-smirk. “Upset you finally lost for once?”

Adora swings her fist; it connects with Catra’s cheek with a _ CRACK _ and Catra stumbles, falls over. “Don’t you dare,” she hisses, and takes another step over Catra, throws another punch towards Catra’s side. 

Catra tries to roll, but Adora catches her wrist and knees her in the stomach; Catra wheezes with an “oof,” eyes screwed up in pain, and doubles over. “You did this to me,” says Adora. “You did — you—” She swings her leg and hits Catra’s side in a single swift motion, still pinning Catra down. Another punch directed at Catra’s cheek. Another crack. Her knuckles are aching. Her whole body is aching. Vaguely, she knows that her eyes are welling up with tears. “How could you do this?” 

Another punch, and this time Catra drags herself out of Adora’s grip and her expression is haunted, terrified, chest heaving with air. She has a black eye. “Stop, Adora,” she manages, and Adora advances. “Stop!”

A swipe at her cheek. Adora feels the blood well up from the scratches and snarls. “You don’t understand,” she hisses, and lurches forward again; Catra barely jumps out of the way of another punch and Adora slams against a tree, hard. The branches shake and leaves flutter to the ground. “Get out of my sight. I’ll kill you. I don’t care anymore. I will. You went too far.”

Catra gasps. Her pupils are blown wide. “Adora, wait—”

“I’m serious,” shouts Adora, and takes a menacing step forward. She’s scrambling for words, anything to make Catra feel her hurt, her anger, her pain. “Do you even _ know _ what kind of danger you put _ everyone I love _ in? Let me put this in words you can understand. You got what you wanted, didn’t you? I lost, and you won. And now I don’t care about you — some victory, isn’t it.” She’s breathing too heavily, but Catra’s turned her back now and scampering up a tree.

Something materializes in her hands, and before she knows it she’s shouting something, and the tell-tale tingle of her body expanding, changing —

“Adora,” Catra says, and her voice is broken, and for a moment She-Ra can’t remember who she is, who the girl above her is, only that she is an enemy.

“Enemy detected,” she says, voice blank, and the girl’s ears flatten as she backs into the foliage, past where She-Ra can see. A surge of violence comes through her: she stomps towards the base of the trunk and shakes it, listens as the girl cries out and clings to a branch.

“Please,” shouts Catra, “please.”

Catra. Her name is Catra. She-Ra’s form flickers. Her sword, pointed at Catra, wavers for a moment, and Catra takes the chance to jump onto another branch. She barely makes it — her claws slide as she grasps the other branch and she pulls herself up using her legs; She-Ra takes a menacing step forward and Catra yelps, disappears into the trees.

The moment the threat is gone, She-Ra sinks into Adora, panting and still bleeding from her scratch. She needs to clean it out. She needs to—

_ I’ll kill you. I don’t care anymore. _ Her words replay in her head, a loop, and the look on Catra’s face is seared into her memory. She can’t stop seeing it, can’t stop hearing herself. Adora glances down at her hands with sudden concern; she doesn’t have the sword. How could she have—

What did she—

She curls over, and for the second time in the past few days, dissolves into tears.

_ JUST MARRIED, says their car parked in the driveway. The beach house is falling apart. Adora smiles, regardless, because it’s there, because she can see Catra scrubbing the living room floor from the window, and waits for Catra’s head to tilt up and to catch her eye. As if on cue, Catra looks up and waves. _

_ Adora lifts the paint — she’d ditched the “sea foam” and gone for white, like Catra initially wanted. Catra cocks her head for a moment, and Adora gestures, and then, with understanding, comes a smile that splits Catra’s face, triumphant, pleased, content. She walks up to the window and rests against it. _

_ “She-Ra!” she shouts, and Adora’s heart stops. _

_ “What?” _

_ “I said, Adora?” _

_ She blinks. Catra’s image flashes, overlaid over another Catra, a catlike Catra with half her face missing, split and splintered by light. SHE-RA. Her eye is blue-screen blue, her arm just a shadow, and the world is falling apart around them; Adora is panting, heart pounding, and Catra’s voice is — _

_ She blinks. The world is normal again. _

_ “Sorry,” she calls up to Catra, who shakes her head. _

_ “Don’t drop the paint, babe. Can’t have you going back and changing your mind.” _

_ Adora laughs and rolls her eyes, looks back to the car. MARA, it says, where it said JUST MARRIED before, and then there is no car, and the light is cracking open the world and the space between them, and she’s calling her wife’s name, again and again as they fall apart, and the ground crumbles away— _

Catra wakes up. Her side aches. She’s pretty sure she’s bleeding. “Holy Hordak, Adora,” she groans, and shifts. She’d found this abandoned hut, clean and dry and warm enough to stay and recover in. When she peels off her shirt, her body is dotted with bruises and cuts. She inspects herself in the mirror — whole again, both sides of her face similar enough to be symmetrical, save for her eye color. She takes in a shaky breath, then lets it out.

Catra forces herself off the bed she’d found and towards the kitchen, where there are herbs still drying and berries in a wicker basket. She hasn’t seen any bugs, or birds, or animals. It seems — _ impossible _ that there are still plants, and yet, here they are. There’s a book, too, open on the kitchen, that she’d pulled out the night before; in it, there are drawings of plants and some kind of writing she doesn’t understand.

The illustrations are enough: pictures of wounds and what to do and how to apply it. She can figure out the steps in between. There’s an image of mint leaves in hot water; she boils the water in the pot over the hearth and finds a plant right outside in a garden, pulling off its leaves and dropping them into the pot.

Once she’s decided some time has passed, she pours herself some in a cup and waits for it to cool long enough to drink. It’s minty, like she’d expected, and soothing; she sits like that, in the kitchen, sipping her drink and trying to comb through her distorted memories of what she did do.

_ I’d rather see the world end than watch you win. _

Interesting, she decides, holding her emotions at length. Look what she’s done; Etheria seems, at least to Catra, to be completely deserted of people. Food is left out, mid-preparation, in village homes. This very hut seems to be abandoned in the middle of a task — the broom is on the floor, and the house is half-swept.

_ This is all your fault. _ Her words, and now Adora’s.

Something is wrong here, and she can’t quite remember how she ended up stuck in an empty Etheria with Adora, who hates her, who can become She-Ra without her sword. She’s gotten what she wanted, too — she’s made Adora lose everything. It’s not satisfying, though, and a subtle itch in her heart makes her pause, rethink her situation.

Where _ is _ she?

She sips her drink, and sinks into her arms and presses her nose onto the table. Something is off, and she’s so, so tired. She reaches over and takes a handful of berries from the basket — still fresh — and a couple stain her claws and hand purple. They’re sweet on her tongue. Outside, the light is bright and warm, and for a moment Catra considers just staying here: alone, safe, unbothered, unaware of what’s wrong.

She considers it for another moment. And then another.

Adora drags herself to a stream and cleans out her scratch wound the best she can. She forces herself to drink, too, and finds herself thirsty for the first time in days, desperate. The water is sweet, and probably dirty, but she can’t find herself bothered. She strips out of her Horde uniform — the white shirt is ripped in places she doesn’t think a couple stitches will fix; she’ll probably have to get rid of it. She figures that there might be something she can wear in Bright Moon, assuming she makes it there.

She’s content again, now that she has another plan. It feels good, too, to watch the sweat off her and get her tight shirt off her bruising ribs. It takes a moment for her to get the confidence to rip it into thin ribbons, but once she has created a bandage for her aching sides, she does feel a bit better. Less tense. More...prepared.

She flexes; the sports bra fits well enough, and the bandages don’t come undone. Her eyes shutter closed for a moment, and flashes of her fight with Catra come back: _ I’ll kill you! Enemy detected. _ The words echo and she flinches, scrubs at her cheek with cold water. She’s tired, now; or rather, she’s been tired since she got here, and she turns away from Bright Moon.

First rest, and then answers, she decides, settling in against a tree and closing her eyes.

_ Catra walks into the Halloween party and grimaces. She doesn’t really like these things; she likes Adora, though, who’s grinning like a maniac and in that insipid Thor knockoff costume she probably picked up at a Halloween store, and though Catra thinks Halloween parties are cheesy, Adora’s smile makes the situation a whole lot more bearable. _

_ “Do you want anything to drink?” asks Adora, collecting Catra’s bottle of wine and moving towards the kitchen to — presumably — open it. Catra can smell alcohol on her breath; she’s already tispy. _

_ “No more than I want to know who you’re dressed as.” Red cape, white dress with a gold flower-star-thing on the chest, bicycle shorts, a crown with wings — all familiar in a way she can’t put her finger on. She likes Adora’s hair down, though; only Adora would look good in those cheap twenty-buck pre-packaged costumes. _

_ “She-Ra?” says Adora, and— _

_ Catra’s heart skips a beat. SHE-RA. She squeezes her eyes shut and when she reopens them, there are cracks at the edge of her vision, white light fading in. Her right side feels wrong, and when she looks down, her arm is just a shadow, and she has claws, and Adora is different, too, and— _

_ “What did you say?” she manages faintly. _

Light Hope stands across from Adora, and the familiarity is some kind of relief; someone else, even someone who isn’t real, in front of her — it makes her ache with something she can’t put her finger on it. It makes her want to stay here, alone in the company of a programmed hologram — something safe, somewhere safe. “Light Hope,” she says desperately, “where am I?” 

Light Hope flickers and glitches. “You are in Etheria,” she says.

Adora groans in frustration. “Why can I become She-Ra without my sword?”

“I do not understand.”

“Where are we?”

“You have already asked that question.”

“What do portals _ do _ to people?”

Silence. And then, “That is not important.”

Adora clutches her side and stomps. “I think, since I am stuck inside a portal, that it _ is _ important information!” Light Hope stands above her, unmoving save for her glitches. Adora barrels on, suddenly _ annoyed _ at the situation, at Light Hope, at being stuck on an empty planet with _ just _ Catra, “How come you get to decide what’s important, anyway? You always decide for me — what to do, who to be, what I get to know!” 

“I was programmed to determine what is important.”

Adora seethes. “It’s not _ fair! _ Catra’s here, and she’ll — I don’t know what she’ll do, but she’s going to — she could kill me, Light Hope, and I don’t know what to do!”

“I do not understand.”

“She could kill me, Light Hope. She’s dangerous, and unhinged, and I can’t control when I’m She-Ra and when I’m not, and I’m scared, and no one else is here, and I miss my friends.”

“You must let go.”

“I don’t want to let go!” she shouts, and realizes belatedly she’s crying. “I want to go home!”

“This is your home,” says Light Hope unhelpfully. “There is no way to leave it. I can help you train.”

“I don’t want to train anymore!” screams Adora, and her throat aches afterward, and Light Hope looks unbothered. “There’s no one here to protect! I did it! I saved everyone! What more do I have to do to please you?” She takes in a gulp of air and a shuddery sob runs through her.

Light Hope doesn’t say anything.

“WHAT MORE DO I HAVE TO DO?” bellows Adora.

“You must let go.”

Adora crumples onto the floor. “You would say that, wouldn’t you,” says she says grimly. She curls into a ball and pulls her head into her knees. “There’s nothing left for me to let go of,” she says, mostly to herself, muffled by her mouth pressed against her pant leg, and then, “There’s nothing left.”

Only her, Catra, and an empty Etheria. 

_ There’s a snowstorm when Adora turns sixteen; Catra’s a little mad she can’t drive her dad’s pickup to come see her, but she’s placated by the knowledge Adora likes that kind of weather. It rains down underneath the mountains, closer to the coast, and Catra snapchats her pictures of tree trunks that have turned brown-black with water. _

hbd,_ she texts, and the response comes barely a second after her message: _ Wow you do care about me. _ It makes her crack a smile, look out at the rainy weather and feel her cheeks heat a little. _

i miss u,_ she types, and then deletes. _ ehhh idk, _ she writes instead, staring warmly down at her text messages. _ ur okay ig, _ she adds, because she knows it’ll make Adora smile, and everything is perfect— _

_ A clap of thunder sounds through the house. She jumps, catches her reflection in the mirror, and for a second half her face is in shadow, splintered by purple-white light, and she has ears, a tail, and then she blinks, and she just looks scared. She sighs and presses the palms of her hands into her eyes until she sees shapes with her eyes closed. _

_ Everything is fine. Everything is perfect. Don’t ruin it, Catra. _

_ She peaks open an eye. She has a text from Adora. _ SHE-RA. 

_ Her phone clatters to the floor, and she pulls in her knees. It’s happening again. It’s happening again, and she doesn’t want to go back, she wants to stay here, where everything is perfect, and Adora still loves her, and it’s raining and she’s happy, why can’t she be happy, and thunder booms again— _

Adora, to her surprise, finds Catra passed out in Razz’s hut. She’s changed into a t-shirt, which has hitched up, and some shorts. Bruises pepper her back and side — _ bad _ bruises. Adora puts her hand to her mouth. She did that. It’s bad enough that Catra, always the light sleeper, hadn’t even stirred when Adora entered the kitchen.

Adora groans loudly and places her palms to her temples. She doesn’t have anything better to do; she’d tried to go to Bright Moon and broken down crying at the thought of it. She isn’t ready to go to the Horde. And Catra — _ she _ did this to Catra, and she’s not sure when the last time she ate was, and —

“Adora—” Catra’s awake. Adora startles, and then sees the look on Catra’s face — it’s hurt, first and foremost, but also terrified and _ angry. _ “I fucked off, didn’t I? Why are you here?”

Adora crosses her arms and huffs. Typical. “This isn’t your hut.”

“It sure isn’t yours, either, _ princess_.”

“Yeah, but I know the owner. And didn’t I ask you—” Adora curls her fingers into a fist “—to get out of my sight?”

Catra flinches back, and then raises a clawed hand. “I found the hut first.” She slides off her chair, and hisses as she does so — she must really be in bad shape. Adora winces. “I’m not going to be bullied around by anyone. Especially not by _ you_.” Scratches cover her face, and her cheek is purpling.

“There isn’t anyone else,” says Adora coldly.

“Sure there is. The owner, for example.”

Adora stops. “Catra,” she says, voice soft. “Do you know where we are?”

Catra frowns, fangs bared. “Of course I know where we are. This is my home.” She rolls her eyes and takes a step forward, and it would be threatening, if she wasn’t limping so badly, or clutching the side where Adora kicked her as she did so, or making that noise with each movement, like she’s sucking in a breath between her teeth. “And I ask you,” she raises her claw, “to get _ out_.”

Adora catches Catra’s wrist as it comes down. “No, Catra, I — You know we’re in the portal, stuck between realities, right? There’s no one here, except for us.”

“Right,” says Catra, yanking her arm back. “Like I’d believe you.” She takes a step backward and has to clutch the table for support.

“There’s no one else,” repeats Adora.

“Stop being so dramatic, Adora,” shouts Catra, and she lunges forward. Adora jumps out of the way and Catra stumbles, usually so quick on her feet, and has to use a piece of furniture to right herself. Her movements are shaky, jolting. “Why are you still here? Wouldn’t _ Glitter _ or _ Bow _ be here by now?”

“They aren’t here!” Adora yells, “And you’re not in a state to be alone!”

“I don’t need you anymore,” Catra says coldly.

“I don’t care,” replies Adora. Her voice wavers for a moment, and then steadies. “We’re the only two people on this entire planet.”

Catra lurches forward again, reaching out to swipe at her arm. Adora blocks her and steps aside, panting heavily. “I don’t believe you,” says Catra, and her eyes are narrowed in that way that Adora hates, the way that means, _ I hate you I hate you I hate, _ the gaze that she never thought would be directed at her.

“Yes, you do,” replies Adora, but it comes out more gentle than she’s expecting. “You could always tell when I was lying.”

“I clearly don’t know you as well as I think,” says Catra under her breath, but it’s more hurt than unconvinced.

“Catra—”

“What happened to hating me, huh? What happened to never wanting to see my face?”

Adora’s shoulders slump. She wants to say that she’d never hate Catra, but she can’t bring herself to — instead, she just watches Catra’s expression fall, waiting for the denial that isn’t coming, and then twist into something ugly. “That’s what I thought,” spits Catra, reaching over to attack Adora once more.

“Catra, please.”

“Catra, please,” repeats Catra in a high-pitched, nasally voice. “You don’t care about me. Fuck off.”

“I — I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You can walk.” She’s still clutching her side. 

Adora groans into her hands and fixes Catra with a look. “I did this to you.”

“I know. I was there.”

“It’s my responsibility to—”

“We’re enemies, Adora. And this planet is deserted. You don’t have any responsibilities anymore.”

“So you admit it. I’m telling the truth.”

  
  
Catra flicks her ear back and her tail coils in annoyance. “Stop trying to be cute. I don’t care about you anymore.” Her brows are drawn together in anger, but something about the expression makes Adora step closer to Catra, suddenly achingly sad with the familiarity of Catra’s hurt expression.

“I know,” she says quietly. “I don’t know if I’ll forgive you, either.”

Catra’s expression twists, and Adora watches her fight back tears. 

“But I did this to you. Let me at least—”

“I don’t want your pity, Adora! Stop trying to save me!”

“I’m not saving you, Catra! You made it pretty _ fucking _clear that you have no intention of being saved! No. You made it pretty clear that you have no intention of letting me live and be happy. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I thought — I just thought.” Adora takes a deep breath. “I don’t know what I thought.”

She picks up the broom lying on the floor and leans it against a nearby wall. “Goodbye, Catra. Have fun going crazy all alone.”

She storms out of the house, suddenly furious. She can never win with Catra. She’s never _ going _ to win. She kicks at a stone as she’s leaving, when—

“Adora, wait.”

She stops.

“Where are you going?”

She turns and glares at Catra. “Wouldn’t you like to know? What are you going to do, strangle me in my sleep? Kill me?” She can imagine a thousand different scenarios, but the real reason she doesn’t tell Catra is because she doesn’t know. She has no idea where to go now.

The look Catra gives her shatters her. “You know I couldn’t,” she says quietly. “You know I never could.”

“I’d like to think that,” says Adora softly, and wipes away another tear, “but evidence lately has been contrary.”

“Maybe,” says Catra lightly. “But I certainly can’t kill you now.”

“You might try to.”

“Maybe. I’ve already lost everything.” She studies her nails. “If you’re right, I don’t get another chance with Entrapta or Scorpia, anyway. It’s just me and you.” She gives Adora a grin, the first real smile Adora’s seen in a long time, but it’s too feral, too dangerous, too toothy.

“There hasn’t been a ‘me and you’ since — since—”

“Since I jumped into the void and then crawled back out?” Catra asks, and, seeing the look on Adora’s face, raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, I remember.” She flexes her right claw and Adora bites her lip. “Or maybe before that, when I left you in that First Ones temple thing. Or before that, when _ you _ left _ me _ all those months ago.”

“I tried to redo it. I tried to fix it. You didn’t want me to.”

“You don’t know what I want,” says Catra. 

“I don’t think I ever did,” says Adora, and sighs. “I don’t think I ever will.”

She turns to leave. Catra doesn’t try and stop her this time.


	2. oleander

_“...Where am I?” Adora opens her eyes and is surprised to find her own body older than it was just a day before, wrinkled, aching in the joints. Her skin, too, is darker than it should be. And standing above her is Glimmer, the same as when she just left, eyebrow raised and hip cocked in some sort of defiance. _

_ “I don’t know who you are,” she’s saying, “but whatever you’ve done with Adora—” _

_ “I’m Adora,” Adora tries to say, but it comes out as, “I’m Mara.” _

_ A beat of silence. And then Bow appears, taking Glimmer’s shoulder, and says, “Ohhhhkay,” with a small voice crack. “You’re...Mara. Right. We thought you, you know, died.” He blinks at her for a moment. Adora frowns. She’s Mara? She glances down again and looks over her hands. _

_ That does explain the different body. “Where’s Razz?” _

_ “...Razz?” Glimmer’s voice squeaks. Wow, Adora’s really missed that squeak. She’s really missed Glimmer. _

_ “Where am I?” she asks again, more insistently. _

_ “Bright Moon,” says Angella, sweeping in. She towers over Adora-Mara, as if inspecting the visitor. “I’m glad you’ve woken up. I’m Queen Angella.” _

_ “Thank you,” replies Mara. “It’s a pleasure.” She holds out her hand and sits up; Angella takes it in a firm shake. “My name is Mara. I’ve been in a portal for—” she pauses to consider the amount of years it has been, and Adora tries to count with her, realizing that she has no idea either, “—some time now.” _

_ “Mom,” says Glimmer really quietly, “she’s the She-Ra before Adora.” _

Adora, true to her word, doesn’t come back. She hadn’t said that she wouldn’t, but Catra knows Adora, knows enough to recognize that Catra isn’t something worth coming back for anymore. She remembers the way Adora looked at her before she punched her. She tries not to let this bother her. Instead, she figures out painkilling draughts from the old book she found, and then how to cook, and how to tend to the fruit and vegetable garden out back.

Her face heals slowly. The bruises purple and yellow and then fade, and eventually her limbs stop aching when she moves. She doesn’t do much. She finds books in alphabets she can read and works her way through the shelves. She finds blank books and pencils, and sketches when she can. 

Sometimes she doubts her judgement and waits for Adora to come back, if only in the way that Adora might: a little less than casual check-up, to see if Catra’s still alive. But Adora doesn’t come, and Catra’s left alone. After some time, she stops waiting altogether and explores the Whispering Woods with the time she spent looking out for Adora instead.

The dreams eventually stop, too; she stops having to check her reflection in the mirror to double check if it’s really her, stops waking up with tears in the corner of her eyes and Adora’s name on the tip of her tongue. Slowly her nights are dreamless, the way they used to be, and she begins to forget the excruciating details of the perfect portal world.

Mostly, though, she cries, and spends whole days in bed neither eating nor drinking. Sometimes she wonders why she won’t let herself waste away, why she always ends up making herself some food the next day anyway. Catra’s always been her own keeper, and her time alone solidifies this: with no one else to take care of her, she drags herself out of bed and does it herself.

Though she always hated working out in the Horde, she starts it up again once her wounds have healed enough, and that helps, too. Something about ‘self improvement’ or some other bullshit Scorpia would spew at her. She misses Scorpia, though. She misses her a lot more than she thought she would.

Anyways. Catra gives herself time to reflect, to draw, to write. It isn’t enough time, and it doesn’t fix anything, and she’s still angry and hurt and bitter. But there is something to be said about having time at all where the only person she needs to prove something to is herself.

Today she sits in the kitchen sketching the living room. She can’t quite get how the lighting works, and it’s bothering her. She takes a sip of her tea and enjoys the birdsong as a bird lands on the open windowsill, pausing to rake her eyes over the shadows once more and then double check her drawing. Wait.

Birdsong?

She jumps up, and the bird startles, hopping away from the windowsill. “No,” she mutters to herself, moving towards the door and looking wildly around, almost frantic. There, a couple feet away from her, the bird spies her, and leaps into the air. 

“No,” she repeats, taking a wild turn that has her pinwheeling, following it as it jumps to another branch, not sure why, exactly, but certain she must —

It takes flight, soaring to another clearing beyond her sight and she dashes after it, kicking up leaves as she does, panting and narrowing her eyes to locate it. A chirp; she tracks the noise and finds it in the leaves in another tree just as it flies to her left and behind a particularly thick tree trunk.

Catra veers left and follows.

She finds herself in the midst of ancient oaks, scouring their foliage for any sign of the sparrow, and looks down once more when she sees the bird. This time it flies straight up, too fast for her to follow on foot, though she does try — she skids to a stop in a clearing, panting, glancing wildly around. Nothing.

No sound.

It’s completely silent, save for her heaving breaths and the sound of moving water.

And then — a chirp.

She looks downward, triumphantly grins when she sees the bird at her feet, and — stops. Next to the bird is a badly injured Adora, different and similar from the last time Catra saw her; ghostly pale with bad cuts up and down her side. Her nose has a particularly nasty slash across it, and she’s bleeding profusely from her side.

“Fuck,” says Catra, bird forgotten, and looks around to try and register where she is.

They’re in a patch of sunlight and Adora’s lying in soft blue-green grass; there’s a stream a couple feet away, gurgling gently as Catra surveys the scene, and the trees around them look ominously gnarled and particularly old. A tuft of dandelion floats past; she swipes at it and tries to remember the way she went. 

“Where the hell did you take me,” she says to the bird, which has now — conveniently — disappeared. She groans loudly and annoyedly, dragging her hands down her face and looking down, and as if in response, Adora whines for a moment, shifting in her spot.

“Fuck,” she says again. “Fuck.”

She doesn’t think twice — she takes off her shirt and begins to shred it into strips with her claws. _ Keep pressure on the wound. Clean, then bandage, _ Adora’s voice echoes in her head, a product of all the survival training they went through together in the Horde. Right. She peels off Adora’s shirt, and with a hiss, she presses her hand onto Adora’s side.

Adora whimpers.

Tears prick at her eyes. Adora never whimpers. Keeping a steady hand and trying to ignore the blood, she takes one of her sleeves and wads it into a ball, dipping it into the pool above Adora’s head, and then dabbing it against Adora’s side. Catra’s good in a crisis — cool head, yadda yadda; she reminds herself of this over and over as she methodically cleans the wound as well as she can and then bandages it, doing her best to ignore Adora’s groans.

Once she’s finished, her hands dripping with blood, she washes them off and dries them on her pant leg. “Asshole,” she tells Adora, and scoops her up. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

Adora doesn’t say anything back. Typical.

Catra tries not to think about how very possible it is Adora could die on the long walk back to her hut. It doesn’t work as well as she’d like.

It takes Adora three days to wake up. Catra tells her this later, and Adora gets the impression that it’s the first time in a long time that she’s counted the passage of time. But that’s later — when she wakes up, she’s too busy trying to process why she’s in Razz’s hut, and why Catra’s bandaging her side.

Catra is silent while she does this, silent and lost in thought. After a while — maybe once she’s certain Adora will stay awake — she says, “You know, I’m learning to read First One’s writing,” and it’s scratchy, and hoarse, and sounds like she’s admitting to a lot more than that.

Adora hums. Her head is cloudy. “I’m afraid of you,” she finally says. A non sequitur. Catra doesn’t seem surprised by it.

“You’re letting me bandage you,” counters Catra.

Adora thinks about this through the cotton balls in her skull, and Catra moves on to treating her cuts as she does this with some kind of liquid that stings. She figures it’s got alcohol in it. “I guess,” she says, “that it’s a different kind of fear.” She’s not exactly sure how to explain it, but Catra makes a funny face like she understands anyway.

It’s unspoken between them that this is sort of an apology, that Catra is trying to amend the fact she left Adora here, that she made Adora so angry.

Adora thinks about that for a moment. She keeps thinking about it: when Catra leaves to go make them dinner, when she eats dinner and finds herself trusting Catra not to poison her, when she’s alone and the hut is silent. Everything has been so complicated between them, ever since she left the Horde and Catra decided to stay behind.

Maybe that’s not a fair perspective, she thinks, looking out the window as she sits on Razz’s bed.

She’s not really sure what’s fair anymore.

Catra watches Adora’s scratches heal over, and then she watches as her side heals enough for her to treat it herself but still lets Catra do it, and then she watches as Adora gets restless lying in bed every day. They don’t talk much — there isn’t a lot to say to the girl who wanted to kill you a couple months ago. The hut remains fairly silent.

She wants to ask how the hell Adora got in such terrible shape, but doesn’t do that, either. She just keeps making Adora vegetable soup and watching, and in turn Adora eats her soup and doesn’t complain, and they don’t talk.

It works for them. Enough.

After about two weeks, Adora manages to walk to the kitchen table and watch Catra sketch some herbs. Her movements are slow, awkward, stilted. She shuffles more than she walks. “Pretty,” she says, as Catra pulls out a green pencil and starts to shade in a basil leaf. “I didn’t realize you’d gotten so good.” 

She goes quiet, like she’s thinking about the caricatures of them Catra used to draw, and Catra thinks about the caricatures as well.

“Thanks,” says Catra dryly, not looking up.

Adora doesn’t seem to take this as a reason to stop talking. “I mean,” she continues, “I tried sketching when I — when, um. When I got nightmares.” _ At Bright Moon, _ mentally supplies Catra. _ Thanks for the reminder, Adora. _ “I don’t remember how I dealt with them.” She sighs and props her chin up with her palm. “I’ve had such strange dreams since I got here.”

Catra perks up at that. “Don’t take this to mean I’m interested, but what kind of dreams?”

“Weird ones,” says Adora, like that explains anything at all. “With, like, this holiday that was called...Halloween, maybe? Where you—”

“—where you dress up in costume,” finishes Catra for her, quiet. Okay, so maybe she is interested now. Whatever. She looks up and realizes Adora’s giving her a strange expression, something nostalgic, as if she also recognizes the familiarity of being able to finish each other’s sentences, but alarmed, too. “Wait. You were in my dreams?” She makes a noise of disgust. “Really, Adora?”

“Hey! It’s not my fault,” says Adora indignantly. “You’re in my dreams too.”

Catra cocks an eyebrow and puts down her pencil. “Alright,” she says. “Tell me about my dreams then.”

Adora hums, like she’s trying to think of how to describe them. Catra takes a moment to describe them for herself, and finds it increasingly difficult. JUST MARRIED, she remembers, along with birthdays and parties, all foreign to her. “There’s snow,” Adora says, after a while, “and Mara and Razz raised me, and I know my birthday, and you know yours.”

“And we live together,” adds Catra quietly, “but at the end of our lives, not the beginning.”

A weird way to explain marriage, but Adora nods, like she knows what Catra means. _ We’re in love, in these dreams _ — a sentence that hangs between them. She sighs. “Thank you for your hospitality,” murmurs Adora, and then she clears her throat. “I should get out of your way, though.”

“Adora. Don’t be an idiot. You can barely walk.”

“I can walk,” responds Adora. _ “She-Ra _ can walk.”

Catra points a finger at Adora. “You managed to get like this without a single animal, a single other being existing — you — wait, can you even control being She-Ra?”

Adora shifts in her seat. “Yes,” she lies, and it’s so painfully obvious that it’s a lie, Catra directs a withering look at her until she deflates. “No,” she says. “But you don’t want me around.” She sighs and bites at her lip. “I don’t know if I can take being around you all the time.”

Catra’s ears go flat and she narrows her eyes. “The feeling,” she says, voice low and bitter, “is mutual.” Then she sighs. “I remember that you tried to fix everything in the portal.”

“What?”

“You knocked me out and took me with you. To save me. To do things right.”

“And look what I got in return,” replies Adora darkly, sweeping her hand to showcase the empty planet they’re stuck on. The movement makes her cough for a few moments, and Catra slides a cup of water towards her almost the moment she begins to cough. “I can never do anything right for you.”

“Aw,” responds Catra, still feeling bitter, “little baby Adora is _ mad _ that things didn’t go her way. Well, get used to it.”

“What,” retorts Adora, “like you did?” She levels Catra with a glare. “What do you want me to do? Shack up in someone else’s hut and then force your ex— your— force the only other person living on this planet to stay there because they’re ‘injured’ even though they _ can take care of themselves_?” The last bit ends up in a shout, and then she begins to cough again, worse this time, and Catra, despite herself, finds herself rubbing circles into Adora’s back until she stops.

“Because you’re so fit to leave,” says Catra, and smirks.

“I don’t understand,” protests Adora miserably. “I thought you hated me. I thought you wanted me to lose. I thought I — I thought I hated you.”

Catra is quiet, and then she rolls her eyes. “Do you need permission to hate me?” she snickers.

Adora lets out a grunt of annoyance and tries to storm out of the room, but when she pushes herself up from the table, she wobbles. Catra’s up in a moment steadying her, a hand on the small of her back. “I hate you,” says Adora, in a way that makes her sound hopeless, and Catra helps her sit back down.

“I know,” Catra says. “I’d love to know how you ended up being a danger to yourself.”

Adora twists her mouth in thought. “Catra…” 

Catra rolls her eyes. “Okay, I get it. Never tell your weaknesses to your enemy. Whatever.” She stands up and snatches up her sketchbook. “I’m going to go — I don’t know, draw something. Not that it matters to you.” She marches out of the front door, and behind her she can hear Adora’s yelling.

“You can’t just storm out! That’s not fair! _ I _ stormed out first!” she calls, and Catra turns around to stick out her tongue before she disappears into the Whispering Woods.

Catra walks without really knowing where she’s going, stomping through the underbrush and tearing at branches. She’s not exactly sure _ why _ her anger boils hot and her blood rushes, pounding, and for a moment the gravity of her reaction confuses her. Then she feels that deep sinking feeling, the familiar _ Adora left you _ melancholy, and she understands.

As if on cue, she stops and realizes she’s facing the door of the Crystal Castle. “Eternia,” she says, voice steady but high-pitched, and to her surprise, the door begins to lower with a horrible creaking. Despite the last time she was here — where she nearly killed Adora, where the castle nearly killed her — she’s drawn to walk in.

She does.

Before her, Light Hope stands, flickering. “Catra,” she states, cooly, electronically.

“Aren’t you going to try to kill me?” responds Catra, tone dry and uninterested, flicking her tail. She doesn’t ask how Light Hope knows her name, but it gives her chills.

Light Hope shakes her head. “Where is Adora?”

Catra feels a wave of overprotection wash over her. “Nowhere,” she says, and then frowns. “Why do you care?”

Light Hope doesn’t answer. She steps forward, and before Catra can duck out of the way, touches Catra’s head. Her hands goes through and Catra scuttles backward, but the walls of the Crystal Castle begin to shift and change. Snow falls, except not real snow, because it glitches through her body. There’s a house and a girl in the window.She looks like Adora, except different, too.

_ Like Adora if she weren’t raised a soldier, maybe, _ Catra thinks. “What is this?” she says.

Light Hope doesn’t respond. “Where am I?” Catra repeats, a little louder, a little more aggressively, pulling out her claws. “What the—”

“Watch,” Light Hope finally replies cooly. “And you will see.”

  
The snow starts to billow faster, and in comes a heavy breeze. A storm — she cocks her head. There’s something familiar about the scene. It makes Catra tense with caution. She moves towards the window and the not-quite-Adora, who’s propped against some pillows and with her palm cupping her chin. Behind her, Catra can see two figures: one at the stove and the other eating something white out of a bag.

She tries to keep out of the not-quite-Adora’s sightline until Light Hope speaks again. “They can’t see you.”

A small metallic rectangle buzzes in almost-Adora’s lap. Catra looks to Light Hope curiously, and Light Hope nods almost imperceptibly because of her glitching. She walks quickly into the house, avoiding sound and people’s gazes, almost by instinct, and peers over the Adora-look-alike’s shoulder.

_ hbd, _ says a little grey bubble. Catra blinks — she knows this device. She knows what this is. She checks the sender; the name says _ Catra <3 <3 <3 _ and her ears flatten and eyes narrow. “What is this?” she says, accusatory, but when she looks around, Light Hope has managed to disappear.

_ Wow you do care about me, _ types Adora, smiling. She looks so happy. Catra tries to press a claw to her forehead in order to get her attention, but it goes right through. 

_ ehhh idk, _ writes back the Catra on the other side of the phone. Adora laughs. The sound is clear and bright, and it makes the real Catra’s heart ache painfully. She did that. Or, some version of her did that — some version of which she remembers dreaming. The realization is sudden, and then the phone buzzes again. Catra’s so distracted by her epiphany that she doesn’t read the message.

Whatever it is, it makes Adora lose focus, and the world suddenly cracks and splinters in an eerie way. Catra’s right hand becomes shadow, and a cry is ripped from her mouth, but it’s distorted, wrong, and she claws at the part of her face that is gone—

And then it stops, and when Catra peers over Adora’s shoulder, the text says, _ ur okay ig _ and nothing more. Belatedly, Catra realizes she’s panting and drawing in shaky breathes. When she feels her face, there are light scratches there. She did that. None of this is real. None of this is real.

“This is what Adora has been dreaming about,” says Catra, when the scene fades, pretending like she didn’t just panic.

“Yes.”

“And you’re showing me this, because…”

“You dream it, too.”

Catra flicks her tail in annoyance. “I don’t know who you really are,” she snarls, “but I want to know something, and when I want to know something, I am told. You don’t scare me.” She flashes her claws threateningly, drawing her eyebrows together. “Tell me what the dreams mean, or I’ll tear down the entire castle if need be.”

Light Hope just looks at her blankly.

“ANSWER ME,” shouts Catra, “Or I start destroying your precious castle.”

Finally, Light Hope moves; she goes slowly, as if she’s considering what to say. “We are in a pocket dimension, of sorts,” she states mechanically. “Or you are.”

“Okay,” says Catra, “thanks for nothing.” She raises her claw and moves menacingly towards the She-Ra mural.

“Wait,” says Light Hope. “I am not finished.” She flickers for a moment. “Your consciousnesses are adjusting to a more porous dimension.” She draws a circle, and Catra raises an eyebrow, walking towards the hologram. She thinks it’s Etheria. And then, over it, Light Hope draws a red bubble. Once she has done that, Etheria duplicates into ten or twenty more Etherias, all without the red bubble. “Dimensions are all different. In some dimensions, there are alternate Etherias. In others,” she points to a gap between two planets, “there is no Etheria. We are here.” The Etheria in a red bubble expands as she says this. “The red is to symbolize the end of the dimension. It is kept—”

She stops for a moment, as if deciding to tell Catra. “It does not matter where it is kept.”

“Great,” says Catra. “Gee, that’s _ so _ helpful.”

Light Hope ignores her. “You see that our dimension is much smaller than any other dimension. It is because it is a pocket. But it is more...porous, because of the damage you did when you opened the portal.” As she says this, holes begin to appear in the red, and light shines through it. “Knowledge, in a sense, flows through here more freely. And so you see things—” the room shifts for a moment, and Catra’s back in the snow “—that you should not see.”

“So it’s my fault,” Catra says, rolling her eyes.

Light Hope flickers. “Yes.”

“Again, thanks.”

“You tried to destroy space-time. I do not understand why you are upset.”

“Whatever. I see why Adora likes you,” sniffs Catra, and turns away from Light Hope and back towards the house. She can’t tell if the scene is repeating itself or if it has stuttered and continued on. “Both of you are buzzkills,” she explains after a moment, even though she knows Light Hope doesn’t care.

“In this state, we are vulnerable,” says Light Hope. “This is why we need Adora.”

“You mean _ you _ need Adora,” says Catra. “Because you are useless without her.” She laughs a dry laugh. 

“I know what it’s like to need her,” she says finally, and she feels the pit in her stomach tighten again, “and let me just tell you that it’s so overrated. I mean. Can she even get us home?”

“It does not matter.”

“So yes?”

“No.”

“So she doesn’t need you anymore.” The scene flickers and returns to normal. 

As she moves towards the exit, she takes a moment to turn and cast a final glare at Light Hope. “Thanks for absolutely nothing,” says Catra, rolling her eyes again. “Except for reminding me that there are universes where Adora and I are really happy and I fucked up all of them. I sure needed to hear that today.”

“You are welcome,” says Light Hope, completely unironically.

Catra leaves feeling no better than when she arrived.

Adora wakes up on the floor with a blanket around her. Catra’s in the kitchen, humming to herself, and for a moment she thinks she’s back in the dream where they owned a beach house and were married and — and then she recognizes Razz’s hut, and the ache in her side. She realizes she’s still stuck in the portal dimension.

She must have fallen asleep in the middle of reading last night. A book is open beside her. Adora sits up and the blanket pools at her waist. She doesn’t recall having it before she fell asleep. She furrows her brows in surprise — Catra must have placed the blanket over her.

She finds Razz’s cane beside her — another thing left by Catra? — and pulls herself up with it. When she walks to the kitchen, she notices Catra watching her. “Nice cane,” comments Catra dryly.

Adora rolls her eyes. “What are you making?”

“Bread,” responds Catra, pointing at a book lying open on the kitchen table. It’s entirely in First Ones’ writing.

Adora blinks, and looks down at it, then back at Catra. Her mouth opens slightly. “You can read First Ones’ writing?” she says, quiet, and tilts her head. She knows Catra mentioned it before, but she hadn’t believed her. It says something about Catra she’s not expecting. Catra blinks under the sudden inspection, like she hadn’t expected Adora’s reaction, either.

“Barely,” she says, and then raises an eyebrow. “What, you thought I sat and twiddled my thumbs when you disappeared?”

“I—no, I didn’t mean—”

“Whatever.” Catra sinks her claws into some dough. “I’ve been meaning to try this forever. _ Don’t _ distract me.”

  
  
“I could help?”

“I don’t need your help.”

  
  
Adora sighs. “I know.” She doesn’t mean with the bread. “But it would make things easier for you. And it would be a repayment. For helping me when I — when I got injured.” She reaches out and slides the book towards her; the writing is scrawled and the book is complete with pictures. Beside it, there’s an alphabet in Catra’s own handwriting. It must have taken her forever to decipher this.

“Fine,” says Catra, rolling her eyes. “You can help. If it makes _ you _ feel better.”

“It will.” A smile creeps over Adora’s face. “I can’t believe you spent, like, two days out of the Horde and now you’re a baker.”

“It hasn’t been two days,” sniffs Catra, “and shut up. I’m not a baker.”

“This is so embarrassing for you,” continues Adora, with a growing smile, “Wow. You’re so _ domestic. _ Feeding me soup. Tending to a garden—”

“I said shut up!” says Catra, but she’s biting back a smile as well. “You’re so ungrateful. I let you help me and now you’re making fun of me. Admit it. You love my soup.” She ducks down to pull out a bowl and places her dough inside. “Do I need to cover the bowl for it to rise, and how long do I let it sit?”

“Uh,” Adora says, scanning the recipe, “yes, with a damp cloth, and...for an hour to an hour and a half?”

Catra nods and covers the bowl with a cloth she wets and then wrings out. She pulls out a device from one of Razz’s shelves and sets it on its head so that sand pours out of it. Adora studies it for a moment, and Catra catches her staring. “And you thought you were so cultured,” she adds with a snort, and it’s Adora’s turn to roll her eyes.

  
“Whatever, Catra.”

“‘Whatever,’” mocks Catra.

Adora sighs. “You know,” she says, feeling a little spiteful, but also tired, “that I won’t stay. Eventually I’m going to leave again.”

Catra just looks at her. It seems, for a moment, like she’s going to mention how restless she sees Adora get, but she doesn’t say anything at all. She moves the bowl to the side and begins to put away ingredients wordlessly. Adora opens her mouth to apologize, but Catra holds up her hand. “I know,” she says, finally. “I know you’re going to leave.”

“I need to know where we are, Catra. If we can get home.”

Catra sighs. She misses her friends. She misses the Horde. But— “If _ you _ can get home.”

It feels like a gut-punch. “You don’t want to leave?” Adora’s voice is soft. She’s not sure why the thought of being in a world without Catra affects her so much; they’ve been enemies for some time now. And yet she is sitting at the same table, making bread with Catra; her head swims when she tries to understand it.

“I don’t know,” says Catra flippantly. “No one bothers me here. No Shadow Weaver. No Hordak.”

“Maybe no me.”

  
  
“Is that such a bad thing?” Her voice is almost inaudible.

“I don’t know,” bites out Adora. “You were the one who saved my life.” She tries to rise from the table, but Catra puts a hand out to stop her.

“Stop it,” she says, and real venom seeps into her expression. “What do you want for that? A cake? You’re holding this over my head. You just told me you’d leave again, Adora, how do you expect me to respond?” She gets up and stalks closer to Adora. “You don’t trust me with what happened. You barely talk to me. But for some reason, it’s like I did something wrong by helping you.” She’s so close now Adora can feel her breath hot and heavy against her own lips. “Face it, Adora. You don’t want me around, but you want me to miss you?”

“I— I don’t want— I mean, I—”

Catra pulls back. “That’s what I thought.” She pauses for a moment. “Why won’t you ever tell me what’s going on?”

“You tell me I’m crazy whenever I do!” retorts Adora, voice growing louder. “Even when I first found the sword!”

“So it’s _ my _ fault you left me.” Her expression twists into something ugly.

“No, it’s your fault that you destroyed space, time, _ and _ my trust.”

“Wow,” says Catra lowly. “You sound just like Light Hope.”

Adora feels herself crumble, surprised by how effectively Catra’s destroyed her. She scrubs at her eyes and glares at Catra across the table. And then — she pauses. “Wait. What?” she says, and Catra suddenly makes a face that looks like regret. “But no one but She-Ra can enter the castle.”

“I can,” gloats Catra. “I saw her yesterday.”

“That’s impossible,” says Adora. _ Because all I needed was for this world to get more complicated. _ “And let me guess. Did she tell you I need to train?”

“You know, now that I think about it,” hums Catra, and then shrugs. “She gave me some answers, too. About our dreams.” She smiles, but it’s not pleasant, exactly; it’s triumphant, mischievous, a little cruel. Adora feels a pang of jealousy. Was she not good enough for Light Hope to give _ her _ answers?

“What did she say?”

“Nothing important,” says Catra, smile widening.

“No, you can’t just _ say _ that—”

“I don’t know, Adora, I think I can do whatever I want.”

Adora glares at her. “Now you’re just being an asshole on purpose.”

Catra eyes the hourglass; it’s almost halfway done. “Maybe so,” she says happily, and she pulls out a rag to clean off the table. She wipes it down with some water and soap, forcing Adora’s elbows off the table. “But you’ve been an asshole to me this whole time, too,” she adds, not looking up.

Adora deflates and considers how she hasn’t really thanked Catra since she woke up. “I’m sorry,” she concedes. “You’re right.”

“I know.”

  
“Asshole,” replies Adora, but a bit more affectionately. “I’m sorry for not telling you what happened. I — I don’t remember a lot of it, actually.”

  
Catra raises an eyebrow. “A mystery,” she says flatly. “Super.” But her ear is cocked, like she’s interested, and Adora stifles a smile. “Or,” adds Catra, after a moment, “you’re just embarrassed of, like, falling out of a tree and impaling yourself on a rock all because you weren’t looking.”

“You really think that.”

“It’s my working theory.” She’s smug, and Adora laughs.

“No, I don’t think so,” says Adora. “I think it happened in Dryl. I went to see if Entrapta had any stuff on portals, on how to get back, you know.” Catra makes a face like, _ I don’t know but I can guess. _ Adora keeps forgetting that Catra and Entrapta are friends — or were friends. She’s not sure anymore. “Anyway. I must have set off some alarm or something, because the bots attacked me.”

“So you do remember.”

“Bits and pieces,” admits Adora. “I think I became She-Ra at some point, and that’s why I don’t remember.”

“You still can’t control that, huh.”

“What_ever_, Catra.” She looks at Catra expectantly. “That’s why I need to know what Light Hope says. I know a little bit about portals now, but Entrapta’s stuff was overwhelming and really, really confusing.” She wilts. “And I can’t ask Light Hope myself because I know she won’t tell me.”

Catra’s ears perk up. “Are you, Adora, She-Ra of Etheria, telling little old _ me _ that you need me?” 

Adora hides her head between her elbows, which are resting on the table, and sighs. “Maybe.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“Maybe,” she says a little louder.

“What?”

Adora’s head snaps back up. “Yes, okay, I need you, Catra, please.”

The look on Catra’s face — surprised, and pleased, too — is startling. She smirks and says, “Fine. Let me get a pencil, and I’ll tell you what she told me.” It takes her a moment to get it right, but she sketches what Light Hope showed her and explains what she can carefully, with attention to detail.

Adora watches her and listens. She asks a question or two, but that’s it; Catra is so immersed in it, so thoughtful, that a strand of hair falls out of her red mask. She’s good at explaining, too; once she’s done Adora chews on her own hair, considering the information.

“Thank you,” she says eventually.

Catra blinks at her. “You’re welcome,” she says, looking unused to the gratitude.

“And I am sorry,” barrels on Adora, “for being so ungrateful earlier. You’re right. Just because I’m angry with you doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate what you’re doing for me now. I — I think it might take some time for me to forgive you, but... I don’t know, maybe I will. If that makes sense.”

Catra’s ears droop with some kind of sadness; the look on her face is bittersweet. “Thank you,” she says, quiet. “I’m sorry, too. And I’ll help, if you need. With Light Hope. And getting home.” She pauses, and the softness in her eyes goes out a bit. “This is _ not _ because I like you,” she adds, “but because I owe you. I got you here, after all.”

Adora sighs. “It’s weird to be working together again, huh?”

“Yeah,” agrees Catra, after a while. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“What if we can’t? Leave, I mean.”

“Maybe we’ll learn to live with each other,” says Catra humorlessly. 

Adora snorts. “I’d like to see that happen,” she says, and thinks of the portal universe, where everything was perfect for everyone else. She wonders, for a moment, if they’d ever forgotten how to live together, and that if instead, she’d just buried it. A painful skill. Painful memories. She looks at Catra, who seems to be thinking the same thing, and looks away. “Right,” she says. “Also. I know you’ve been giving me the bed. It _ is _ big enough for the two of us.”

“Took you some time to offer,” Catra responds, playfully annoyed.

“Oh, I’m sorry for being mad at you for breaking _ space and time _ and _ trapping us in another dimension _.”

“I know,” says Catra, and flicks back a piece of hair. “You’d think I was charming enough to make you forgive me.”

Adora, despite herself, laughs, and Catra laughs with her. It strikes her as an important kind of moment. Not forgiveness, exactly, or returning to who they were some time ago. Just laughter — a shared joke. Enough promise for a maybe, an almost, a possibility between them. 

_ Adora finds herself in Mara’s body again. She’s sitting in the meeting room, listening to Angella pace. “I know you want to find Adora,” she’s saying, and it’s directed at Glimmer, “and I want to return Adora from the empty dimension. It’s horrible there, according to Mara. That much I know to be true. But we must first neutralize the Horde so that they don’t do this again. We cannot risk putting another person in the portal.” _

_ “But—” Glimmer stops herself, looking impatient. Then she locks eyes with Bow. “We can’t leave Adora there.” _

_ “And we won’t,” says Mara; everyone turns to look at her. Adora is surprised by the intensity of their gazes. Her voice is thick with an unrecognizable accent, and it does not waver. “I spoke to Scorpia last night.” Adora feels a wave of confusion wash over her. Scorpia? “She says that Entrapta is close with Hordak, and that Entrapta will have information about portals. My wife will as well.” _

_ Wife? _

_ Mara turns, and Adora’s gaze swivels with her, landing on Razz, who’s sitting next to her. A familiar feeling burns through her — Adora wonders who it's meant for; obviously not Razz, but someone else, someone Razz must know. It’s strange; Adora knows she has felt this way, but can’t place down when or for whom. It makes her ache even more. “How does that sound to you, Commander Glimmer?” _

_ Glimmer eyes narrow and her face sets with a determined expression. “Alright,” she says, cracking her knuckles. “Scorpia, can you lay out the Fright Zone for us?”_


	3. purple hyacinth

_ A dream, or maybe a memory: _

_ Adora, in Catra’s arms. It’s unclear if this is the Catra she knows or a Catra she’s imagined, but they’re rocking to soft music. Adora’s eyes are closed and buried in her shoulder. She smells like sweat and deodorant — nothing special, nothing unusual, but achingly familiar. “Don’t go,” whispers Catra into her ear. _

_ Somehow, Adora knows that if she opens her eyes, the room will be splintered in cracks of white-purple light. _

When Adora wakes, Catra casts a dirty glance in her general direction, or perhaps at the floor to her right. Adora sighs and sits up slowly. The pains in her abdomen are less and less these days, but even then, she has to do everything slowly. It’s killing her. Catra, looking at her like that, is killing her. “Catra,” she tries, but Catra turns her back before she can say anything else.

Adora pats the ground around her for Razz’s cane. “Catra, come on,” she says. “I just — I wasn’t ready. To, you know.”

“Sleep in the same bed as me,” supplies Catra bitterly. She has her claws in something. Maybe dough again.

“How much bread do we need?”

Catra’s ears flatten in annoyance. “You don’t get to judge my decisions,” she replies, somewhat stiffly, “when you said, over a _ week _ ago, that you were okay with sharing the bed, Adora.” She kneads the dough a little more forcefully. Adora cringes, running her hands down her face.

“I thought I was ready,” she says.

“And you couldn’t just say something.”

“Catra.”

“Stop ‘Catra’ing me. Stop it.” 

Adora opens her mouth again, and then shuts it. “You haven’t gone to Light Hope this week, either,” she says. She knows her tone is a little petulant. She pulls herself up onto her cane instead, trying to stand. Catra watches her struggle for a moment, and then pads over with an offended air, and helps lift her. “Thanks,” says Adora.

“You won’t ask for help.” Adora doesn’t know what she means, until she realizes it’s Catra’s response to her Light Hope comment.

“I— it’s not because it’s you, it’s—”

“Horde this, Horde that,” Catra interrupts. “I _ know, _ Adora.”

“You’re angry with me. For not being able to—?”

“No.” Catra’s response is a little too quick. Adora sighs into her hands again and finds herself taking a seat at the kitchen table. There’s an expectant silence between the two of them. Eventually, Catra rolls her eyes and drags a claw through the dough, cutting it in half. Adora frowns down at the table.

Neither of them says anything.

Finally, Adora reaches across the table and lays her hand on one of Catra’s. “Please. I’ve been having dreams, and Light Hope won’t ever — she doesn’t trust me. Not to turn into Mara. I just need to know if they can help. Or. I don’t know.” Adora heaves a heavy breath. “I just feel like I don’t know _ anything, _ anymore.”

“I don’t think you have much power to become Mara in a pocket dimension.” Catra snatches her hand back, but her tone is dry, nonchalant, uncaring. Adora squints at her. “What kind of dreams?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Whatever.”

“Catra, come on.”

  
  
“I asked you to stop ‘Catra’ing me.” Catra places the dough in a bowl with a wet towel over it. Then she turns her back and pulls out a loaf of zucchini bread she made the other day with Adora’s help translating. She cuts a slice and slides it over to Adora. “I’ll go to Light Hope. I know I owe you.”

That knocks something out of Adora, the way she says it like that. _ I know I owe you. _ Adora scrubs at her face, sighing. It feels impossible to reach Catra like this; it feels impossible for Adora to do anything. She’s failing — not just physically, but emotionally, too. Her dreams of Mara make her ache for home, and her days with Catra make her ache for the Horde.

Adora aches. Maybe this is how she will live: eternally wounded, limping through a world frozen in time.

“Adora.” 

Adora looks up at Catra, and for a moment Catra is studying her. “Eat,” she commands, and then, when Adora tilts her head in surprise, “You’re making that face when you overthink things,” by way of explanation, and nudges the bread closer. 

“I—” Adora frowns. For a moment she considers telling Catra about her dreams, but finds herself afraid — afraid to mention the world they left behind, to mention the world she’s worried she created in her head. Her silence grows taut, and Catra cocks her head, almost curious, almost — Adora almost wants to think that Catra is worried about her. “I miss home,” she offers, and hopes Catra knows what she means.

Catra’s expression falls, and then hardens. “That wasn’t an excuse to tell me what’s up.” Her back turns, and Adora sighs.

“Right.”

Catra does as she’s promised Adora: she goes to the Crystal Castle to bother Light Hope. The castle opens for her just as before, just as readily; it still feels like an invasion, even a perversion, of a space that is only for Adora. In some ways, Catra revels in that. “Light Hope,” she calls, saccharine.

Light Hope flickers and appears. “Catra.”

“I have a..._ proposition _ for you.” She smiles. “I want information about the planet and the dimension. In exchange, I’ll convince Adora to come back to you.”

Silence.

Light Hope twitches, and then reaches out her hand, presumably to mock a handshake. Catra cocks her head, but extends her own palm silently. _ This was easy, _ she thinks, raising an eyebrow as their hands meet, and Light Hope’s glitches through her own. Light Hope’s mouth opens, her audio a beat off from her image: “Is that all you want?” It’s more of a statement than a question.

Catra yanks her hand back. “What?”

“Is that what you want?”

The landscape changes: Adora is looking back towards her in a red bathing suit. Her hair has gotten lighter, her skin more tanned, and she’s laughing, beckoning. Slowly Catra notices the chatter of other swimmers at the pool, watches as people test the concrete beneath her feet for warmth. “Catra,” calls Adora, giggling, “come on!” She takes a running jump towards the pool, and even though it’s something Catra hasn’t dreamed before, she knows the scene intrinsically.

Catra backs up, instinctively, and with Adora’s splash, the room flickers before changing again. They’re in a park, and Adora’s sitting on a picnic blanket in high-waisteds and a band t-shirt, laughing the same way, offering a piece of bread. There’s a slight breeze that rustles her hair; it tickles her nose and she scrunches it up. Catra can’t feel the wind, but she knows it’s there, the way she knows the grass is tickling Adora’s legs and the sun is beating down on them.

“Stop.”

Again: Adora, at a party, with her hair up and dancing like a fool. She’s in a stupid pair of bright red short-shorts that make her unshaven legs look long, and somehow Catra knows what her legs feel like between her own. She doubles over, presumably laughing at the expression Catra should be giving her — one of embarrassment, but of fondness, too, and Catra knows this Adora so well she could retrace her blindfolded.

“Stop!”

Again: Adora’s underneath a blanket, and she’s laughing, but groggy, too, and there’s a space in the bed that shaped like Catra, as if she’s just gotten out. There’s a window, just beyond Adora, that shows a purpling sky, and Catra knows this sky, this Adora, as if she sees her every night.

“I said _ STOP!” _

Light Hope steps forward. “I know what you are to her,” she says, simply, like Adora and Catra have ever had their relationship figured out.

Catra feels the urge to weep. All these scenes, so familiar and unfamiliar both, where _ home _ to Adora isn’t Bright Moon — was never Bright Moon.

“Is that all you want?”

Catra takes a couple heavy breaths, trying to calm herself down. The simulation shutters off, and the walls of the Crystal Castle come back into focus. She peers at their eerie writings instead of Light Hope’s face. “I don’t know,” she admits, after a long time. She crosses her arms. “What are you offering?”

“I am not offering anything at all.” 

“Then what do you want from me?” it comes out far more wounded than Catra means it to. 

Light Hope doesn’t answer.

“Why do you keep doing this to me? Showing me this?” Catra sweeps her arm out, and Light Hope follows the gesture, expression unchanging. “How does that accomplish anything for you?” She’s worked up now, angry even. “All I did was offer something that is _ to your benefit _ and you just keep trying to scare me off.” Her claws glint in this lighting. 

Light Hope says nothing.

Catra takes a menacing step forward. “Well, guess what. I’ve had enough manipulators in my lifetime.”

“Bring me Adora,” intones Light Hope, “and I will answer your questions as I can.”

Adora’s trying to sleep when Catra comes back in — she hears her soft footsteps, familiar as ever, silent to the untrained ear. She hates herself for a moment, annoyed she can’t let go of that old memory, like a phantom limb. “Adora?” whispers Catra, and she sits up, blinking groggily. “Were you asleep?”

Adora shakes her head and stifles a yawn. “Did you find out anything from Light Hope?”

“You sure you weren’t sleeping?”

“No, just tired. What about Light—”

“I heard you the first time,” says Catra, making a movement to sit on the bed, and with a jolt stops herself. She hovers awkwardly until Adora pats the spot beside her, and only then does Catra crawl closer to sit beside her. Her shoulders tense as she decides what to say; Adora looks at her, and the closeness between them feels almost magnetic. A deep breath — Adora leans closer. An exhale, and with it: “She won’t tell me anything until you visit her.”

“Oh.” Adora pulls back.

Catra shrugs, nonchalant, like what Adora does next could matter less. Like Adora could matter less.

“What should I do?” Adora finds herself asking Catra, and Catra stares back at her, cool, collected, uninterested. One of her ears flick, but other than that she is still, waiting. Adora bites her lip and waits; it feels important to ask Catra this, and even more important to receive an answer. _ I want to know, really, _ she tries to tell Catra telepathically.

Catra sighs, as if she’s heard Adora. “Whatever it takes to get you back to Bright Moon,” she says, and it’s so bitter Adora recoils.

“What?”

“Good night, Adora.” With that, Catra drags herself off the bed, tugging an extra blanket with her, presumably to sleep on the floor tonight. Adora opens her mouth to apologize, to call out again, but she sees Catra’s set posture, and decides against it. Sometimes it’s best, she thinks, to let Catra be stubborn on her own.

_ Mara’s hands are as old as Razz’s; they walk side by side, silent, and Adora studies the familiarity between them. “You are going to visit Light Hope, Adora,” says Razz, so certain, and Mara sighs, wringing her hands. Adora wants to call out, wonders if Razz can perceive her, and receives a look so knowing and piercing she becomes certain Razz can. _

_ “I need to get Adora back,” says Mara. “She’s just a child.” _

_ Razz’s gaze refocuses on Mara, not on Adora, like the intensity of her look has shifted. “There is another reason, hm, dearie,” she says. “You will not be happy.” _

_ Mara sighs again, louder. “I promised the Rebellion I’d help them.” _

_ With that comes a piece of knowledge Adora’s not expecting — Glimmer is leading into battle another Bright Moon army in a couple of days. Worry pangs in her chest; she’s suddenly aware of the weight of the sword on Mara’s back. She wants to ask so badly what’s going on, if everyone’s okay, why _ Scorpia _ was there— _

_ “She’s not your Light Hope anymore,” says Razz, and Adora isn’t sure who she’s talking to. “Be careful.” _

The grass is wet with dew. Adora traces her hand over it absentmindedly, focusing on the image of herself rocking, in tears. She grits her teeth as she focuses on the red wings splayed across the other-Adora’s back. _ You must let go. _ The printed wings come in and out of view, hidden by jerky movements and choppy long grass. Adora takes a deep breath and raises her hand. 

The sword materializes in it. 

_ You must let go. _

She lifts the sword above her head and concentrates on the transformation — a stretching in her legs, her spine; dizziness and momentary lack of control; warmth, spreading underneath her chest. She closes her eyes. When she reopens them, she’s taller, bigger, heavier — and the other Adora is gone. All traces of Adora are gone.

“Good,” says Light Hope behind her.

Adora presses her mouth into a thin line. It’s barely a smile. She tosses the sword from hand to hand. Its weight is almost unnoticeable at this point. Being She-Ra is like muscle memory. “We’ve done this ten times now,” she says. “I don’t know why you’re making me do it in front of — in — um, here. I figured out how to control summoning the sword by the fifth time.”

“It is not so easy in the real world. I am merely reminding you of the detriment your emotions can be,” intones Light Hope.

“Right. Let’s just watch me on the worst day of my life then!” She tosses the sword down frustratedly and shrinks back into herself. Her stomach flips, like she was hanging upside down and just become right-side-up. She thrusts her hand back into the air, and concentrates once more. The sword materializes for half a second, and then fizzles out.

“You are angry.”

“You won’t tell me anything about where I am.”

“You are in the Crystal Castle.”

“You know what I mean.” She tries again: hand shooting up, picturing the sword, and for a moment she can feel something solid before it disappears again. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” she groans. “I did this five times already!” Again: hand up, and she feels nothing but air. She yanks her hand down, swivels to glare at Light Hope. 

“You are not calm.”

“I would be calm if I had any information about the portal. I mean, you told _ Catra _ before you told me. Am I not good enough?” She gives up, and presses herself to the ground to start a push-up and regulate her breathing. Light Hope drifts over and places a hand on her shoulder — the hand goes through her, but Adora understands what that means. She’s still _ delicate. _That’s why they’re just transforming today. 

“Adora.”

Adora sits down and looks up at Light Hope. 

“There is nothing I can tell you that will make you happy. There is no way for you to open the portal. You do not have the sword.”

Adora pushes her hand up and closes her eyes. She sits there a moment, hand raised like she has a question, and feels the thrum of the simulation around her. Then she pictures the sword’s handle under her fingertips, the weight in her hand, the texture of metal and leather. The mental image becomes heavier, the texture more real, until she is holding the sword above her, like she is about to strike. She puts the sword in her lap, grins, and pushes a strand of hair out of her face. 

“That is not really the sword.”

“But if I had it in the real world—”

“That is not really the sword.”

“I know,” says Adora impatiently, “but if I had it in the real world—”

“That is not—”

“You’re not listening to me!”

Light Hope looks unmoved. “You mean, you are not listening to me. The sword — any sword — that you obtain here in our pocket dimension will never be the Sword of Protection. You cannot create a portal.” She stares unblinking at Adora for a moment, and then the scene changes to a black negative space. “Let us try transforming again.”

“For the honor of Grayskull,” grumbles Adora, and focuses on the lengthening of her legs instead of on Light Hope’s disapproving expression. 

Catra always has warm food prepared for Adora when she comes back after seeing Light Hope. They don’t comment on this — Adora is more often than not too exhausted to even say anything, anyway. Sometimes she just sits by the kitchen table and tries not to cry; the thought of getting home seems more impossible with each passing day.

Sometimes Catra mentions things Light Hope has told her, but as the weeks continue to stretch on, they become less and less useful. “Sometimes,” Adora tells her, “I wish I could understand Entrapta’s research.”

Catra never really responds. She’s fairly silent, too — they exist as codependently as they used to in the Horde, but whatever love there was before, Catra struggles to see it now. She watches Adora eat the food she’s given mechanically, sometimes bringing back plants when Catra asks for it, but they don’t say anything of weight around one another.

Eventually Adora stops going to Light Hope altogether, and soon, so does Catra. Adora’s wounds heal properly, and though her side has an ugly scar, she begins to spend more time outside, training, in the perpetual summer heat. It could have been months since they were forced in the portal, or only a couple weeks; without Adora healing, the passage of time becomes what feels like a figment of Catra’s imagination.

One night Adora doesn’t return.

Catra pretends like it doesn’t bother her; she leaves out a plate of food and covers it with a cloth so that any flies that happen to exist don’t get to it before Adora does. She takes the bed, too, and decides that she must have had too much caffeine, or something, and that’s why she isn’t sleeping well.

When she gets up in the morning, she ignores the hollow feeling in her stomach when she notices Adora’s still gone.

She goes about her day, making bread, tending to their garden — _ her _ garden, a voice hisses in the back of her skull. She tries not to think much about that. The day stretches on, long and hot, and Catra keeps wondering if she’ll see another bird, if anything will change at all, or if Adora’s just gone again.

She wonders if she’ll ever know.

Not that she _ cares. _ She’s just fine without Adora. She’ll always be fine without Adora; she’s made it this far, hasn’t she?

(She tries not to think about all the things she gave up because she was so angry — the Crimson Waste, with Scorpia; being second-in-command, with Hordak; even joining the rebellion, with Adora herself. There’s no use thinking about it _ now. _ This is her home. This might even be her home forever).

Adora’s not back that night, either. Catra clears the plate of food she made yesterday, and, after a moment’s pause, replaces it.

_“Hope…?”_ _the way Mara’s voice wavers, Adora feels like she really shouldn’t be here, but she can’t figure out how to leave._

_ The Crystal Castle is as eerie as it always is; through Mara’s eyes, though, Adora sees with clarity how _ old _ the structure is. Mara’s painfully aware how old she is. The Light Hope before Mara is as flickering, as unresponsive, as she has always been with Adora, but for some reason this makes Mara’s insides ache even more. _

_ “I’m not going to give up on you, Hope,” says Mara, quietly. “You were my best friend. I’m not letting that go so easily.” _

“Catra.”

Adora reappears a few days later, obviously sleep-deprived, hungry, disheveled. “Catra, please speak to me.”

Catra doesn’t even look up from the bread she’s making. Adora’s plate sits, still full, on the kitchen table. Her brows are furrowed, though, the only indication she’s angry, or even listening. Adora feels sick. She takes a step forward into Razz’s hut, fighting back the feeling she’s intruding on Catra’s home.

That feels unfair. This was _ Razz’s _ home first. “Catra, please.”

Catra looks up slowly, acknowledging Adora for a moment with a slight frown, and then returns to her bread. “Catra, come on. I can explain.”

Catra opens her mouth — presumably to insult Adora — and then shuts it again. She heaves a heavy sigh, places the dough in a bowl for it to rise, and walks out to tend to the garden. She pushes past Adora without a word, anger coming off of her in waves. Adora scrubs at her face.

“Catra,” she says pleadingly.

Silence.

“Should I just go then?”

Catra stiffens, but doesn’t look at her.

“If I’ve intruded—”

“Where are you gonna go?”

Adora presses her lips together. Catra makes no indication she’s spoken, but her words, heavy with an unnameable emotion, hang between them. “I don’t know,” she says honestly. “I kept trying to — I think there might be some information at Bright Moon, but I can’t — I can’t go home alone.”

At the word _ home, _ Catra bristles. Adora winces.

“I’ll probably go find another cottage,” she says honestly, rubbing her hands on her pants. “Though I don’t know how to cook. Or much else.”

“Should have thought about that, huh, Adora.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so angry,” Adora snaps finally. “I _ told _ you I’d leave eventually.”

“You didn’t tell me when you did!” shouts Catra back, and it’s much louder than either of them expected — her final words echo off the trees and fill the otherwise silent Whispering Woods. Adora hates how quiet it is here, having spent a week in the forest, trying to travel to Bright Moon, only to turn around again.

“I didn’t think I needed to,” she says.

“You never think.”

“Catra.”

Catra whirls around to face her, stepping closer angrily. “Are you ever going to stop ‘Catra’ing me? Are you ever just going to ask what _ I _ want? I’ve spent so much time trying to get you home, Adora. Don’t even pretend that I haven’t.” When she says _ home, _ her voice rings with so much bitterness that all of Adora’s energy drains out of her at once.

“I wasn’t trying to patronize you,” she says.

“You sure as hell weren’t trying hard enough, then.”

“Cat— Look, I’m sorry. But I’m not like you. I can’t stay here.”

“No, you hate me too much.”

Adora bristles, anger spiking again. “And whose fault is that?”

“What about using _ Shadow Weaver _ to try and stop me, hm? It’s like you’re trying to recreate Bright Moon as your childhood home, and even if no one else has noticed, I have.”

Adora’s dumbstruck. She tries to figure out what Catra means — how did she know that Shadow Weaver was a prisoner at Bright Moon? Did she mention it sometime? She can’t remember. But she didn’t use Shadow Weaver to — she shakes her head. “What do you mean, Shadow Weaver? She’s a prisoner!”

Catra blinks at her, skeptical. “You really expect me to believe that.”

“Yes, because it’s _ true_!”

“I saw her with Glimmer!”

Adora goes silent. She much have become very pale, because Catra’s ears flick with interest and some of her anger drains out of her. “You didn’t,” says Adora quietly. “You mean—”

“You didn’t know?”

Adora shakes her head, curt. “You thought I’d ever trust her? After what she did to me?”

This is the wrong thing to say — Catra’s arms fold, and she gets quiet again. “But you would have, after what she did to me.”

Adora blinks. She thinks about it — all the horrible things Shadow Weaver did to Catra, and tries to find a way to articulate how fucked up Shadow Weaver made her as well. She opens her mouth, closes it. “I think,” she says, after a long silence, “I think that if I hadn’t left the Horde, I would have forgiven her for what she did to the both of us.”

“You were her favorite. She didn’t do anything to you.”

Adora scrubs at her face, suddenly very tired. “Did she?”

Catra watches her curiously. “Well?”

Adora shrugs. For the first time in a long time, a wave of self-understanding rushes over her. “Why do you think I can’t accept that we’ll never get back to the real world?”

Catra looks at her for a very long time, and then she breaks her gaze, turning back to her garden. “Hm,” she says, not much of an answer, but _ enough. _ She strokes a stalk of some plant, like she’s considering what to say next. “Okay,” she says, unconvinced — Adora frowns at her.

“You don’t believe that I don’t see what she did to you.” Catra opens her mouth, but Adora holds up her hand to silence her. “I didn’t, you’re right. I didn’t. But the Crystal Castle — and her chasing me to Mystacor — I didn’t see it until then.” The words feel heavy and clunky in her mouth; she trips over them, trying to articulate herself. “I don’t understand, I know I don’t. But I see now that I don’t. That I might never—” she cuts herself off and frowns. “That I can’t—” She sighs. “That I’m the only one who might — who might — but even then—”

Catra tears her gaze from Adora, as if this confession is too rambly, too unsure, too intimate. Her cheeks burn. “Adora, stop, I understand,” she says, finally. Her words are steady, though, even if she does not make eye contact. She says, silently: _ you are the only one who will ever almost understand. You will never understand enough. _

Adora breathes a sigh of relief.

“I still don’t forgive you for leaving without saying anything,” Catra adds. “Or not telling me anything about your dreams.”

“I know,” says Adora. Her shoulders slump. “I don’t think we’re ever going to forgive each other.”

Catra turns and looks at her curiously. “I don’t know about that.”

_ Glimmer has her hands on her hips, evidently proud of herself. “Your old spaceship,” she says triumphantly, and Razz huffs, like she wasn’t the one that lead them all to it. Mara gasps; Adora feels an old familiarity, an ointment for an old ache, a kind of relief that is indescribable. _

_ “Can we take it to Beast Island?” asks Bow, worried. _

_ Panic — Adora’s panic, not Mara’s — wells up inside of her. Beast Island? Adora knows stories of Beast Island; they are perhaps some of the only stories she was told as a child. Scorpia, next to Bow, echoes Adora’s sentiment: “Are we sure the only way to rescue Entrapta is by going to Beast Island?” _

_ Another strange feeling: agreeing with Scorpia. Adora doesn’t dwell on it. _

_ “Yes,” says Bow firmly. “You don’t have to come.” _

_ “I’m not losing another friend,” replies Scorpia, folding her claws across her chest. _

_ Mara watches this all unfold with some amusement, and some sadness. Her sacrifice was not enough, she thinks to herself — and by extension, to Adora. Children still went to war, inevitably. At least she can provide them information about Beast Island, about Etheria’s past. _

_ She startles as she realizes Razz is looking at her. “Do not worry, Adora,” says Razz. And then, “We are waiting for you.” _

_ Adora is not sure if Razz means that everyone is waiting for Mara to board the ship, as they appear to be doing, or that everyone is waiting for Adora to leave the portal. _

_ I’m trying, she tries to tell Razz anyway. I’m trying. _

Catra gets up early the next morning, and she’s surprised to see Adora in bed next to her, quiet and peaceful. Her hair is down, cast over the pillow. She whines softly when Catra untangles herself from her limbs. Somehow, it strikes her with surprise that Adora’s still here, finally trusting enough to sleep in the same bed.

_ I don’t think we’re ever going to forgive each other. _ Looking over Adora now, the way she sleeps so deeply, so certain Catra won’t hurt her, Catra wonders if Adora’s ever properly had any shred of self-understanding. She rolls her eyes and gets up to make some tea and breakfast.

Adora rises a couple hours later. She’s in an old t-shirt Catra found for her, and soft cotton pajama shorts, yawning as she drifts towards the kitchen table. She must have truly been exhausted to have slept for so long. Her hair is still down. “Good morning,” she says, making no indication she was gone two days before that, or that even yesterday Catra was ignoring her.

Catra sighs, then motions to a pair of bags on the ground when she realizes Adora has not noticed them. 

There’s a plate of food on the table, too, still warm — Adora sits in front of it, then looks back at the bags. “Eat quickly,” says Catra, not quite explaining herself. “You took forever to wake up.” Adora quirks her head in question. She starts to eat, though, following that unquestioned trusting that seems to go between them, even if it is ruptured by tension from time to time.

Catra thinks about that, and about all the things they won’t say to each other. They have been not-speaking for what feels like months, but Catra remembers — clear as anything — their years of existing joint at the hip, that old tenderness between them. She knows Adora remembers it, too.

Catra and Adora look at each for a long time, slow and searching. Each one is surprised with how _ seen _ they feel, rather than sized-up, like the other girl is looking at an equal and not an enemy. When Catra speaks, she speaks shyly, like she’s almost embarrassed. “You said you couldn’t go to Bright Moon alone, didn’t you?”

Adora’s smile in response is radiant.


	4. daffodils

The dreams in Mara’s body have gotten worse, more intense, more real. Adora begins to forget who she is: Mara’s pains are her pains; Mara’s body is her body. When Mara is She-Ra, the line blurs completely, and they act as one — Adora cannot tell if Mara is even in control or if Adora somehow has some say.

Adora, through Mara, watches Micah see his daughter for the first time in a decade; she sees Shadow Weaver becomes less and less of a prisoner; she experiences combat with the Horde, this time with Mara’s skillset at hand. With each day, Entrapta and Mara get closer to seeing Adora, really seeing her. With each day, Glimmer gets less and less hopeful, more and more brash with her magic.

Adora wants to scream. She wants to move. She wants to speak, just once, to her friends — her family. Scorpia, it turns out, defected in a desperate attempt to save Entrapta; the Horde, without Catra, begins to crumble and fail. Adora learns all this, and more, paralyzed in Mara’s body, losing more of herself and her memories with each dream.

She wakes with a start: Catra looks at her — curious, almost _ frightened _ — from her own bedding. Maybe Adora startled her. She takes in a deep, shaky breath to brush off the remnants of her dream. They’re on their way to Bright Moon, Adora recalls. It’s just the ever-silent Whispering Woods, her, and Catra. There is no Mara, no Glimmer, no Bow. Not here. She looks at her hands, trying to make out the shape of them in the dark.

There’s a sudden movement: Adora whips her head around to watch…

...Catra resettle back into sleep. Oh. Everything’s fine.

Everything’s fine.

On the way to Bright Moon, Adora repeats this statement to herself, silent. For the most part, she and Catra hike without speaking. Catra huffs somewhat noisily, obviously unused to the constant exertion of hiking with a bag, but Adora keeps her breathing in rhythm and thinks about what lies ahead. The forest is silent around them, too — no hum of bugs, no trill of birds. Sometimes Adora thinks she hears a twig snap and fights the urge to whirl, knowing full well Catra is too careful to ever walk loudly and sluggishly even in an unfamiliar environment. But the only real noise is Adora’s own feet hitting the ground with solid thumps.

She casts a glance up: the sky is blue, without clouds. In some way, this is more eerie than overcast weather; everything about the land screams _ normal, normal, normal _. Etheria, this Etheria, is thriving. In fact, perhaps it’s much healthier because there aren’t two armies fighting through it.

Adora has just had a dream where she slashed through Bright Moon in an attempt to destroy another feeble attack by the Horde. Or — no, where _ Mara _ did. She scrubs at her temples.

Catra seems to notice Adora’s discomfort, because she edges a little closer, but she doesn’t say anything. It’s a silent language Adora hasn’t spoken in a long time, their quiet way of communicating. Some part of her pangs with the knowledge that she still remembers how: looks out of the corner of the eye, irregular breaths, the almost unnoticeable movement of a limb.

She wonders if Catra even realizes the two of them are speaking the way they used to. She must; Catra’s eyes flick towards Adora’s, quick, before returning to gazing blankly ahead. Adora doesn’t remember this walk taking this long before arriving to the Portal Etheria — perhaps time is different here. She wouldn’t be able to know.

She clears her throat. It’s scratchy, dry. Catra silently passes the flask of water towards her. She grabs it roughly, takes a swig, wipes at the water dribbling down her chin. “You were always so gross when you didn’t need to be,” mutters Catra beside her, and Adora turns to lock gazes, finding a half-smile quirked on Catra’s lips.

“Shut up,” says Adora, shoving at Catra good-naturedly. 

Catra smiles widens, stutters, goes still. She sighs and returns looking ahead.

Adora raises an eyebrow. “You’re upset.”

Catra doesn’t respond.

“Catra.”

Catra shrugs. “I don’t want to get into it.” There’s something more there: _ You won’t be able to change anything. _

Adora frowns. She scratches at the back of her neck, focuses on the rhythm of her footsteps, concentrates on the warm sunlight on her cheeks. “Okay,” she says, pitching the second syllable higher and fiddling with her fingers. “But, I mean, if you do. You know, want to get into it. It’s okay.”

“You don’t need to give me permission, Adora.”

“I’m just saying, I mean — you did a nice thing, coming to Bright Moon with—”

“And?” Catra whirls on Adora suddenly, stopping in place. “Just because I’m being nice to you doesn’t mean you’re _ entitled _—”

“It’s not about being entitled, just that if you don’t trust—”

“You want to talk about _ trust, _Adora? I know you’ve been dreaming!” Catra drags her hands down her face in frustration; instantly, Adora knows this is the issue — so instantly it sends a shock through her. There’s a certain clarity in it, though. This is what is between them: to know and not know each other.

“You don’t know anything,” grits out Adora. “You don’t know—”

“I—I know why you won’t tell me anything,” says Catra, “Last night, when I woke, I saw a phantom of the sword above you, just for a moment, the way it’d be arranged if you were in a casket. Or on a mural.” _ Same thing, in Bright Moon. _ She takes in a sharp breath, then lets it out slowly. “I understand why—” Her voice trembles, then regains its steadiness. “Whatever. You are not that important.”

“It’s just that I’m the only person on the planet?” offers Adora bitterly. She casts the image of the sword above her from her mind. It’s — impossible.

“It just that I know you’re going to leave me again.” This is so low, so cutting, Adora feels the hurt slice through her. Catra regains herself, slowly, and though Adora knows that pain is still there, it’s hidden cleverly behind a mask of cruelty. “It’s fine, Adora, really. I’m better off without you. I just — I’m helping you get out of here.”

“Don’t say that,” whispers Adora. “Don’t say that to me.”

“Whatever. Let’s just get to Bright Moon.” She starts walking again, leaving Adora standing in the dust behind her.

Adora jogs to catch up. “Catra, please. What do I have to do to please you? What do I have—”

“Adora, stop.” Catra’s eyes are wide, wild, full of the emotion Adora knows to be the twin of her own longing. 

“Why are you bringing this up again? You yelled at me, not so long ago, for being off-again on-again, but what about _ you, _Catra? One moment you say that you’ll come with me to Bright Moon and the next you won’t speak to me about what’s wrong. I don’t know how to do right by you!”

“Adora, please, I said _ stop _.”

“I _ can’t _ — I just don’t understand—”

“Neither do I!” shouts Catra, her chest heaving with jerky breaths. “I don’t _ know _ why I’m so angry, I just—” Tears well up in her eyes, and she goes to brush them away, but Adora catches her wrist. There’s a moment of silence, where Catra, wide-eyed, looks to Adora, and Adora, shocked by herself, looks down at her own hand holding Catra’s thin wrist; and then she tugs Catra into her arms, familiar as if it hasn’t been months — maybe more — since she’s done this.

Catra is stiff in her arms for a moment, then pauses and melts into her. She sniffs into Adora’s shirt; Adora places her chin over her head. “I know,” she says, because she _ does _ — she’s been angry at Catra for so long in this empty, stupid, horrible Etheria that she’s not sure why anymore. Maybe she’s just angry that they never had a chance; Adora barely thinks they have one now.

“Adora, I’m—”

“No,” Adora says, above her. “You’re right. I’m not — I haven’t been fair to you. You’re right to be angry. I haven’t b— I wasn’t a good friend.”

Catra doesn’t say anything, then, but she buries her head in Adora’s chest, and for now, that’s enough.

Bright Moon Castle towers over them. Adora hitches a breath when she sees it; Catra casts a sidelong glance towards her, suddenly nervous. The moon is setting, and shadows are getting longer. Catra gnaws on her lower lip for a moment. “Should we go inside?” she asks in a small voice. “It’s getting dark.”

They haven’t said much since their fight.

Adora turns to her, and her expression is _ tired. _ She looks exhausted, weary, unhappy. Catra remembers the sword, hanging above her, poised as if it would tip and sink into her or simply pass right through. “You want to set up camp tonight, and we can go check it out tomorrow?” offers Catra, feeling weird about it. It feels — strange — to take care of Adora like this. Adora’s always wanted to take care of _ Catra; _ the weeks in which Adora was healing, Catra never had to — wanted to baby her.

But now —

Adora heaves a heavy sigh. “Yeah,” she says, setting herself down on the ground. “Yeah, if that’s okay.”

Catra looks at her, studying her, surprised at how fragile Adora looks with Bright Moon as a backdrop. She really couldn’t come here alone. “Yeah,” she says, voice surprisingly scratchy. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

“Thanks,” says Adora, unrolling her bedding from her pack. She grabs the lantern and lights it, setting it in the middle to cast light over the clearing. The night is warm and humid. Catra settles beside her, unrolling her own pack and pulling out the meals she packed for the two of them. Adora’s face is half in shadow; it flickers, eerily mirroring Catra in the portal, corrupted and cracked with white-purple light. 

She holds out a sandwich to Adora. Adora takes it happily and unwraps it. “Catra?”

“Hm?”

Adora takes a deep breath, like she’s preparing herself. She’s silent for a long moment before she speaks. “I, um. I’ve been dreaming about Mara.”

Catra flicks her ear with a sudden spike of annoyance. “Who?”

“The She-Ra before me. The one whose ship you — yeah. I, um. When we entered this world, I guess we let her out? I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out, but, uh. Sometimes I see home from, um, her eyes. I don’t know if it’s real, but I like to think so.” Adora looks down, fiddling with her hands. “Scorpia’s okay,” she says, finally. “In my dreams, I mean, she joined the rebellion. They went to, uh, Beast Island, to rescue Entrapta. I know that sounds crazy. I don’t know how real that is.” She coughs a laugh, dry, bitter.

The feeling of annoyance — only _ now _ will Adora tell her — mixed with relief disappears as suddenly as it arose. Catra feels her blood rush from her face, suddenly thankful that Adora isn’t looking at her. 

“Catra?” Adora, as if on cue, looks up. “You don’t have to — wait, are you okay?”

Catra closes her eyes. Regret bubbles up inside her; she suddenly doesn’t want to be near Adora at all. Her hand goes instinctively to smoothing her hair. The overwhelming urge to lie fills her gut; she wants to tell Adora so badly that those dreams are fake, that this — _ world _ — is messing with her mind, but.

Catra knows those dreams might be their only way out. Adora’s had dreams before, didn’t she? Voices, in the forest, and they lead her to the sword; they told her that the perfect portal fantasy wasn’t real. Catra wants to badly to call _ brain damage _ but — that’s not fair anymore. It’s not fair anymore.

“Catra?”

“It’s real,” she finds herself saying in a surprisingly steady voice. “It must be.”

“What’s real?”

“Your — your dreams. They’re real. I, um. Sent Entrapta to Beast Island.”

Adora’s silent for a moment, and Catra, against her better judgement, throws a glance towards her. Adora’s eyes aren’t hard, like Catra’d expected; she really did believe these dreams were real, and she let Catra take care of her anyway. Instead, Adora’s expression is soft, sad, like Catra’s just admitted something tragic.

Maybe she has.

Catra pushes that thought away and focuses on how _ useful _ this connection might be. “Have you tried talking to Mara? Telling her that you’re—”

Adora stiffens suddenly, as if shocked. “Of course I have,” she snaps. “I just — can’t.”

The way she says it, like her failure’s a wound, makes Catra edge a little closer to her. “That’s okay. Are there any places in Etheria that might — I don’t know, help?” Her own mind is whirling; she’s been thinking of Etheria as a place to conquer, not use as a crutch. The exercise of a “helpful place” is so foreign it startles her at first as she combs through the places she knows: all power centers, and her most in-depth knowledge is their defenses.

She feels a pang of regret: she has no idea how to help Adora’s subconscious. In their relationship, it’s always made Adora leave Catra, and Catra’s always tried to convince Adora to ignore it instead. She brushes her hand along the grassy ground and tries again. Entrapta might have information stored in Dryl; Bright Moon might have some records; Mystacor might —

“Why are you helping me, Catra?”

Catra startles, then pauses in her strategizing to size Adora up. A couple answers bubble up, unbidden: _ because you’re you, because I don’t know what else to do, because I lo— _ “Because you want to go home,” she says simply, unable to articulate the more complex, true answer. Adora narrows her eyes, like she doesn’t accept this, but nods anyway.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

“No, seriously.”

Catra snorts. “I won’t stop you.”

Adora bites her lip, then sighs. “Do you — do you really want to stay?”

Catra doesn’t have an answer to that. Instead, she lies down slowly, turning over and closing her eyes. There’s silence for a moment, like Adora’s still waiting for her to say something, but Catra can’t bring herself to say anything at all. She bites back a weary sigh and finds herself saying, “Thank you for telling me about your dreams.”

  
Adora doesn’t have any response to that.

_ Mara walks through Bright Moon, lost in thought. She’s just had a conversation with Micah about properly apprehending Shadow Weaver; somehow, she harbors a hatred for Shadow Weaver that comes with the knowledge that someone is an abuser. Or maybe — maybe that’s Adora’s knowledge. _

_ Adora only just grasps a piece of self-awareness before it disappears again. _

_ “I’m sorry I never met Adora,” Micah had said. _

_ Mara had agreed. _ But I’m right here, _ protests Adora. _ You have my memories. _ Mara doesn’t seem to hear her. She just gazes out at the Whispering Woods; she can hear their murmur, a stark contrast to the silence she had become accustomed to. Or maybe Adora had become accustomed to. _

_ No, Mara had; she had spent a thousand years there. Yes, yes that was right. _

_ “Mara,” says Glimmer. She looks tired, shoulders taut. “We need your advice to plan some attacks.” _

_ Mara stops thinking about Adora. Adora does, too. _

When Adora rises, Catra’s already awake, watching her with that same expression as before. “The sword?” asks Adora when Catra makes no move to explain herself. Catra nods, perfunctory, like she isn’t incredibly unsettled by whatever she saw, and then turns to reveal a map of Etheria.

“I was thinking,” she says, “That I might have to go back to the cottage.”

“What?”

“Not for long. Just to, you know, make sure that it’s fine for a long journey.”

“You did that already,” says Adora, bewildered. “Why are you turning back now? Are you—” Her heart sinks. “You’re mad about me not telling you about my dreams earlier, aren’t you.” Catra’s tail flicks; her eyebrow raises. “Look, Catra, I’m sorry, but I thought you wouldn’t believe—”

“I’m not,” says Catra. “I just think that if we want — if _ you _ want to get out of here, we need to figure out a way to contact Mara.” She jabs her finger onto the map. Adora doesn’t mention her slip-up. “Bright Moon _ might _ have some information, but my guess is that Dryl and Mystacor are the two places that are going to be the most helpful.”

“What?”

“Catch up, Adora. Entrapta probably has a bunch of information, if we can just figure out how to hack it…” Her tail flicks again. Uncertainty. “And Mystacor might help you strengthen your subconscious, or whatever. I don’t know. You’re magic, it’s magic. It seems like it might help somehow.”

“How do you know what Mystacor is?” asks Adora, even though that’s the least important question she has right now.

“I tried to conquer Etheria, remember?” Catra sighs, pinching at the stem of her nose. “I know about Mystacor.”

“I um.” Adora pauses. “I don’t think you need to go back to the cottage.”

Catra cocks her head.

“We prepared it for a long journey. In case. I remember that.”

“Razz might have some information, though.”

Adora shrugs. “Not enough.” And then, at Catra’s look of surprise, she says, “I checked. When I was healing. Not much to do but read.”

Catra draws her shoulders up, for a moment, like she’s full of some emotion she’s trying to hide, then nods. “Let’s, uh. Let’s get to Bright Moon.” She looks unsettled from earlier, too, and Adora’s surprised she’s not pushing it — maybe she doesn’t know what to say. That seems wrong, though; Catra always knows what to say.

Adora sits up and brushes invisible dirt off her legs. “Yeah,” she says, voice unsteady.

“Hey,” says Catra. “Look at me.”

Adora looks at her. Catra takes off her helmet and puts it into her pack; the movement is significant, somehow, like Catra’s surrendering to something. There’s care, and worry, and sadness in her eyes. Sadness Adora has been able to see but hasn’t been privy to for a long time, maybe even longer than before she left. Catra holds out her hand. “I’ve got you. Let’s get you home.”

Adora quirks a wry smile, taking Catra’s hand. “Promise?”

Catra raises an eyebrow. “I’m not the promise breaker between the two of us,” she says without bite, expression full of amusement when Adora scowls.

“Shut up,” says Adora, fighting back a smile. Wordlessly, like they’re rehearsed it, they set off towards Bright Moon together. 

Bright Moon is — not what Catra imagined. Adora watches her face when they enter rather than the dilapidated building before them, obviously trying to gauge Catra’s reaction. It feels a little unfair; Catra can’t really form an opinion on a building covered in dust and cobwebs and with weeds poking through its cracks. The gardens are untrimmed, food molding in the kitchen, clothes and weapons scattered all over the floors. As if everyone just suddenly vanished.

It’s unsettling. Everything — the ghost sword over Adora; the silent, bereft Bright Moon sitting like a skeleton before them; the dreams Adora claims to be happening.

Catra clears her throat. “Where’s your room?”

Adora pauses. “I, um. Not yet.”

Silence between them. Then Catra nods, allowing Adora to tug her towards the library instead. An obvious coping mechanism, but — sometimes Adora needs to throw herself into something to manage an overwhelming emotion. Catra knows that. She knows, also, that it’s best to just respect that.

So she does — she grabs books that might be helpful, and waits for Adora to be ready. Adora falls asleep over her own reading, which Catra promises herself to poke fun at later. If she squints, she thinks she makes out the phantom sword above her, but maybe she’s making it up. It’s weird, this — this moment in time. The tenderness of it, the silent acceptance of it. It’s a change, for sure; she’s spent so much time asking Adora to be something — someone — she’s not. She knows that. Maybe she’s always known that. And now Catra’s looking for who Adora is.

It’s feels — weird.

It doesn’t matter. Adora’s working on accepting who Catra is, too: Catra can see it in the way she lingers, in the way she apologizes almost obsessively, in the quiet space between their conversations. She’s always thought that if they ever reconciled — something that had started to feel impossible — it would be on the terms of either Catra or Adora.

It’s not so simple, she realizes. There’s a lot of work there. A lot — Catra’s still _ angry. _

She looks up: Adora is awake and watching her, carefully, silently. Maybe even studying her. It’s like she’s waiting for some give, too. They’re both still angry, but—

“Are you ready?” Adora asks, quietly.

Catra snaps her book shut. “Are you?” she counters.

Adora nods. “Yeah,” she says. “I am.”

(—but they’re figuring it out).

_ “Adora.” _

_ “No, Razz, it’s me, Mara. Remember?” _

_ “Adora, dearie, would you do me a favor?” _

_ Adora — Mara — nods, eager to please, eager to be remembered. “Yes, what do you need?” Mara is free today; she probably will be tomorrow, too. The Horde was neutralized yesterday. This makes Adora jolt; _ I’m here, _ she calls, remembering what Catra asked her to do. Contact Mara. Let her know that you’re here. _

_ “You need to close the portal.” _

_ “No, Razz, I — I mean, she — already did that. Remember? Remember that she closed the portal?” Mara puts an arm on Razz’s shoulder. Razz ignores it, staring at Mara with clarity and understanding that makes Adora feels seen, recognized, remembered. Razz remembers her. _

I’m here.

_ “Do you hear me, dearie? You need to close the portal.” _

I don’t know how to do that.

Razz, I don’t —

_ There’s a shout, and Mara whirls, her hand on the sword. She forgets about her favor, about Adora. Adora forgets, too. _

Adora turns, and her eyes are swimming with tears. The bed — suspiciously similar to Adora’s in the Horde — has an obvious layer of dust on it. Adora’s hand hovers over it, as if about to wipe it off, and it quivers the longer she holds it out. She holds Catra’s gaze a moment too long, and then pulls her hand to her chest, cradling it.

Catra’s silent, hovering. She takes a step forward and Adora scrubs at her eyes. “I just. I just didn’t realize it’s been that long,” she says, quiet, and her voice breaks in the middle of her sentence. “I know that’s stupid. I know that we saw the rest of Bright Moon like this. I know, just. Just—”

Catra takes another step forward, and though Bright Moon is entirely unfamiliar to her, she sees the care in Adora’s gaze; it’s as if, through Adora’s eyes, Bright Moon becomes a place she _ knows, _ because she knows Adora, and Adora knows this place. “Yeah,” she says, taking another step forward, “it is stupid.” Her tone is endearing, mostly, much softer than intended.

Adora looks at Catra and lifts the corner of her wobbling mouth into a half-smile. When Catra comes to hug her, she melts into Catra’s arms. “Thank you,” she says. And then she laughs, wet and ugly and unhappy. “I never thought you’d see my room.”

Catra shrugs around Adora. “Lots of faith in me, huh, princess.”

Adora’s snort is a little more happy, a little more alive. “Yeah,” she says. And then, like she’s forcing words out through layers of desperation and loneliness and worry — “I had a dream. And, um. An idea.”

“An idea?”

“Did I ever tell you about Razz, um, in the portal?”

Catra finds herself — unmotivated. Adora flits around Bright Moon, trying to come up with their next steps and structuring the journey Catra had planned around Razz’s advice (command, maybe?); Catra, on the other hand, finds her way to the kitchen and digs through the mostly stale and moldy pantry. She methodically goes through the jams and preserves, then the dried fruit, setting out what has kept and what hasn’t. Most of it hasn’t. Figures, for the Princess Alliance; of course they’d be wasteful even as they fought the Horde.

Regardless, Catra’s surprised to find there’s enough that hasn’t gone bad for several days of traveling. She smiles, toothy, pleased with herself. If she goes up to the gardens, there might be some overgrown vegetables and herbs to make a hot meal with tonight. She wonders, for a moment, if Adora misses Bright Moon chefs, with real food and meat. Catra has never had meat regularly; even raw vegetables are better than ration bars.

She makes a low, pleased noise when she finds the most exciting thing of all — a _ yeast _ colony. Technically, yeast shouldn’t exist; it’s an animal, after all, but against all logic, it does, and Catra is pleased with this. 

Adora coughs from the doorway. Catra snaps her head up, cheeks burning. “What,” she snaps.

Adora’s expression smooths into something soft. “You’re happy about what — a jar?”

“It’s a yeast colony,” sniffs Catra. “To make bread.”

“Right,” says Adora, rolling her eyes. “I’ve gathered some supplies. If we eat and sleep, we can set out in the morning.”

All business. Catra should have guessed. At her sour expression, Adora frowns. “Something’s wrong,” she guesses, and Catra shrugs, looking over the scattered jars and dried food she’d deemed worthy of and nutritious enough for taking with them on their journey. It’s not like she hasn’t been helping pack, even if she’s mentally dragging her feet.

“Catra, come on.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” says Catra, a little too quickly, with a little too much bite in her expression.

It doesn’t matter what she’d said; Adora knows her a little too well — even after all this time, Catra thinks bitterly — to believe her. “Why won’t you just tell me?” she complains, gesturing in Catra’s direction. “It’s always that I can’t please you, and I know — I _ know _ — you’re angry. But I’m angry too, and I’m trying _ so hard _not to take it out on you.”

“No,” snaps Catra, patience thin, “you just walk out on me instead.”

“Is that what this is about? Me walking out on you? I thought we talked about that—”

“It’s about you leaving now!”

Adora huffs, they way she would with a small child. It just serves to make Catra angrier; she’s not a _ child, _ she’s just — she’s just _ sad _ and _ lonely _ and _ angry. _ “You know I have to leave,” says Adora, voice thin but placating nonetheless. Catra wants to scratch her. “They need me, Catra; I can’t stay here. I’m not like you. I can’t just walk away.”

“You’re not like me?” scoffs Catra. “What does that mean?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Oh, so me leaving the Horde is now a _ fault _? Is that what’s going on? Grow up, Adora. This is what you wanted from me!” Her voice sounds high and acerbic, even to her own ears. She sounds on the verge of tears; she’s so angry that when she looks down, the counter has several dents from her claws gripping it too hard. She peels her fingers from the edge and flexes them.

Adora watches her sadly. “That’s not what I meant, Catra, and you know it.”

“No,” says Catra, jabbing a finger in her direction. “You just are so self-sacrificing you’d rather have a cause than face the fact you, Adora, are unhappy. You _ need _ something to throw yourself into rather than deal with your problems. You’re mad at me because you think _ I _ always initiate these arguments, but _ you _ refuse to allow yourself to be angry. You always have to be selfless and perfect! You can hide that from Sparkles and Bow, but you can’t hide it from me. I know you. I see you. I will always see you.”

“Shut up,” says Adora. “You don’t know anything.”

“Really? Then why did you seek out Light Hope to train to become She-Ra, even though it was always obvious she wasn’t good to you?” Catra’s being mean now; she knows it, but she can’t help it.

“Shut up. I mean it, shut up.”

“Why? So you can leave me again?”

“I was always going to leave!” bellows Adora, and Catra takes a step back, surprised. But Adora isn’t done: “I can never do anything right for you anymore. I have to leave, Catra, please, why can’t you understand that?” Her voice drops to a murmur, quiet and achingly sad, somehow more hurtful than when she shouted. “Why can’t you do this for me?”

“Because you refuse to see what I need.” _ Because the Rebellion should kill me for what I’ve done. _

“I’m trying to see, but you won’t show me! What do you need?” Adora wipes at her eyes; Catra realizes belatedly she’s crying. “I can’t do this anymore, Catra. I’m—” her voice wavers. “You are so important to me,” she says, voice so low it’s almost a whisper, but fierce nonetheless. “But you can’t expect that that’s enough. I know I didn’t handle things well. I know.”

“Shadow Weaver punished _ me _ when you left.” Catra doesn’t mean to admit it, but once it’s left her mouth, the accusation, while heavy, makes her chest feel lighter. “I’ve always been worse than you. Would you have died for me, Adora?” Her hands start to shake. She curls them into a ball. “I would have died for you, before. I would have—” at Adora’s expression, she cuts herself off.

They are silent for a long time. Adora looks thoughtful, and guilty, and — and _ sad. _Bone-achingly sad. “I think,” she says slowly, “I would die for you now.” 

Catra is surprised when a lump forms, suddenly, at the back of her throat. 

“I mean,” continues Adora. “I keep forgiving you, despite — despite this.”

“To be fair,” counters Catra, voice thick and trying to ignore the lump, “you nearly killed me when we first met. It’s not my fault you blew off a bunch of steam when I didn’t.”

Adora laughs, and then so does Catra. “You forgive me for that?”

“Forgiveness is complicated,” says Catra. But Adora’s smiling, and Catra’s smiling, because they both know what Catra _ means, _ which is, _ yes. I do, despite everything, yes. _

“Will you come back with me, though, once we figure out how?”

Catra sighs. Adora, ever the persistent. “I,” she starts, then stops. She looks at her yeast in her hand. “I don’t know if I can join the rebellion.”

“Not really a rebellion,” says Adora, frowning. “With, uh, you here, the Horde, uh.”

Catra looks up, surprised. “What?” But judging by Adora’s face, it’s true — not that Adora could lie that well, anyway. The Horde, toppled. Catra took a moment to consider this, the idea that her old home — _ their _ old home — was gone. Really, truly gone. She held her emotions at length, examining them, surprised to find that she didn’t even consider her chambers hers anymore. They were just a part of her old life now. When did that happen?

“I guess Shadow Weaver knew squat about your worth,” says Adora, shrugging, misreading the complicated mess of emotions on Catra’s face.

There was that — Adora was admitting that _ Catra _ was the reason the rebellion struggled so much in defeating the Horde. Or perhaps that Catra was the Horde’s undoing. Perhaps both at once, she thinks, scanning Adora’s face. “Then what—” She swallows. “Why are you going back?”

Adora looks like she wants to lie and say that she misses her friends; she shifts from foot to foot. She lets out a breath. “I’m worried Etheria isn’t equipped to handle Horde Prime without me.” After a moment’s pause, she adds, “I’m not sure if it is without you.”

Catra shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “I’m not interested in my worth being determined on my success in battle. Not anymore.” A half-lie: she knew, the moment she stepped into battle, even if no one else judged her based on successes and losses, she herself would. Adora nods, face tight.

Catra’s silently grateful Adora doesn’t argue with her.

“But you will, though? Come back with me?”

Catra rolls her eyes and surveys the Bright Moon kitchen. Her gazes catches on Adora, like it always does; she’s always cared too much Adora and Adora’s always cared too much about her. A mutual Achilles’ heel. “You know,” she hums, “the only reason I opened the portal was because of you.”

Adora cocks an eyebrow. “Are you blaming me for this?”

“No,” says Catra slowly, testing her words before she says them. “You — I—” She takes a breath. “I couldn’t leave the Horde because I was so angry.” It feels — uncomfortable — to speak this aloud; she knows Scorpia’s seen this destructive side of her, but admitting it to Adora feels like crucifying herself. “I’ve been angry for so long,” she whispers, scratching at her upper arm. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I know,” says Adora, quiet. And then — “You were right, you know. I do need a cause. Being stuck here — I — that’s why I kept disappearing. I needed a mission.” She looks surprised when she says this, like the truth of it is deeper than she expected. Something warm floods into Catra at this — this mutual bearing of weakness.

Like two snakes shedding their skin.

“I’ll come with you,” says Catra, quiet. “I will. But only if—” A pause, a shuddering breath. She’s not sure what. She’s not sure what she wants. She gestures with her hands, hoping Adora will understand, and Adora’s eyebrows crease in confusion before smoothing out into something like comprehension.

She nods. “Okay,” Adora says, exhaling. “Okay.”

_ Mara goes to visit Light Hope. A thousand years stretch between them — the hologram flickering before her, the person watching her warily, her _ lover _ — she’s exactly the same and unrecognizably different. A wave of tenderness washes over her; she pulls out flowers, trying to remind Light Hope of a memory from a lifetime ago. _

_ Something else sneaks up on her, too: confusion, like she doesn’t recognize a more feeling Light Hope, one that doesn’t keep secrets— _

_ Keep secrets? Hope never kept secrets from Mara. She scratches at her head, digging into the feeling, but it — and with it, Adora’s sense of self — slips from her fingers. _

_ “Mara,” says Light Hope, tone blank and emotionless. _

_ “Hope,” says Mara, and traces the edge of the hologram’s chin. She can’t feel anything, of course, but she pretends, and yearns — “one day you’ll come back to me. I’m not giving up on you yet.” She pauses, her heart heavy. Light Hope’s expression wavers, almost unnoticeably, underneath Mara’s fingertips. “I’m not giving up on us yet.” _

_ Something strange happens to Light Hope, then; Mara watches it occur. A feeling settles in: determination, and a certain softness that feels as alien to her as a stranger might. _

Catra wakes before Adora with a jolt; her stomach is in knots and her claws have sunk into her pillow. She must have had a nightmare — yet the anxiety of it stubbornly clings to her stomach’s insides. It’s still dark out; she definitely has enough time to go back to sleep before they set out. She glances at Adora, nervous, wondering if she’s awake. She isn’t, but over her head hangs the sword once more, nearly solid. Catra blinks at it.

Her anxiety rears its head once more. Her breaths quicken; yet, as if enchanted, she still reaches out to touch it, expecting it to feel like a hologram. It isn’t solid, not quite, but there’s a tug, like suddenly a magnet has rooted itself in Catra’s chest, and Adora jolts suddenly, mouth open as if to say something, and Catra’s not sure how long it’s been, if Adora’s always been saying something—

The world goes very still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hav NO idea how long this fic will actually be...probably between 6-7 chaps, but ive been wrong before! :-)


	5. wallflowers

_ Snippets, like she’s been pulled through thin pages of realities, worlds: _

_ “Catra—!” Adora’s voice, desperate, wet with tears. Mara’s eyes, cold and calculating, above her. Scorpia’s claw on her arm, worried, gentle. Glimmer’s footsteps in a room, too-fast and impatient. Entrapta, too, with hair probing the space beside Catra, or maybe above Catra; she can’t tell. Her own chest, heavy and aching, hers and not her own, all at once. _

_ “Catra!” cries Adora again, and then the world goes still. _

Catra’s eyes fly open. Her chest heaves with a quick breath, as if she’s gasping for air, and then suddenly she feels sore, and tired, and her lids grow heavy again. “Adora?” she says, out of a kind of habit, voice rusty and throat scratchy, and is met with silence — odd, because this room is the same as where they were sleeping, only — only —

She surveys the room in chunks. It’s not so dusty, like someone’s cleaned it, and it’s alive, somehow — lived in, maybe. “Adora?” she says, again, sitting up and scratching at her head. It’s throbbing, a little.

“Adora’s not here.”

Catra’s eyes snap up. Across the room: Glimmer. She blinks. Another voice. Another — another person. Her head spins. Beside Glimmer, there’s Scorpia, and Catra, out of practice, finds herself unable to hear their overlapping words; they just contribute to her headache. She hasn’t had to deal with more than one person in so long. She hasn’t had to deal with someone she doesn’t know almost as well as herself in so long.

“Are you okay?” says Scorpia, finally, after a beat of silence.

Catra blinks again. Is she — okay? Her visions blurs, then clears again. She’s in this — this circle of light. It reminds her of the green prison doors that the Horde uses, but glowing faintly orange. She doesn’t have time to respond before Scorpia’s asking questions again, and then so is Glimmer, and—

“What did you do with her?”

“What happened to you?”

Her headache worsens as questions are volleyed between Scorpia and Glimmer. It’s overwhelming; Catra closes her eyes as if to shut them out. Bright Moon slides out of view, and she expects — no, she _ wants _ to see the dusty, unused, deserted castle when she lifts her lids again, but it’s just Glimmer and Scorpia, twin expressions of confusion and wonder.

“Where’s Adora?” says Catra, finally, when she trusts herself to speak. “Where’s Adora?”

She knows the answer. She knows it as well as they do. 

Glimmer sits down on a chair nearby, and sighs.

  
Adora doesn’t sleep once Catra disappears. She wanders Bright Moon’s halls aimlessly. Later, she’ll barely recall what she does: make a sandwich out of their supplies, sweep the dust out of her room, pull weeds in the garden. They’re useless tasks, and she does them emotionlessly, if only for something to do.

She has no idea where Catra is, what happened.

She has no idea what to do.

She doesn’t sleep the next night, either. She doesn’t even try.

_ Catra dreams of the portal world again. Something about it feels right, sitting in a branch and feeling the silent sunlight on her back, the top of her head. She peers down; Adora stands at the doorway of Razz’s hut, as if unable to enter. Her expression, as far as Catra can tell, is contorted in a way to hide her anxiety. It’s obvious this is a few months ago: Adora’s still dressed in the Bright Moon version of her Horde-issued uniform, and the way she hovers indicates they haven’t made up yet. _

_ “Hey, Adora,” she tries to call, but it comes out as a chirp — _

_ She startles at the noise just as Adora whirls, looking for its source. Her foot lands on a twig, snapping it — the sudden sound rings across the clearing, and the surprise of the two things jostle Catra out of her dream. _

“So this is a prison.” Catra still finds talking to other people — to _ multiple _ people — strange, but she’s so mystified that the room she’s in functions as a _ cell _ that she speaks without thinking. “I’m — I’m a prisoner.” She looks around at the confused and indignant princesses and barks a raspy laugh. Glimmer looks particularly pained, which just makes her laugh harder.

“Yes,” says Angella, placing a hand over her daughter’s shoulder. “This is your cell.”

Catra’s mouth twists. She tests the column of light she’s trapped in with a claw; it’s as unyielding as she’d assumed. She wonders if this is Glimmer’s work, or Micah’s. “Because I’m part of the Horde.”

“The Horde doesn’t exist anymore,” snaps Glimmer. “We defeated it.”

Catra considers telling them that she _ knows, _ she knows everything, silently weighing her options. Glimmer seems to take it as solemn defeat, because she looks exceptionally pleased. Catra suppresses an eyeroll. She wonders what Adora would want her to do; she then wonders why she cares what Adora would want. The answer, though, doesn’t matter: Adora always wants and Catra has always cared.

Adora would want her to make nice.

Catra really, _ really _ does not want to make nice. She sighs, rubbing at her temples. No one is going to help her now; Adora’s not even here to defend her. Safety first.

She smiles — too many teeth, too feral — and nods. “I know,” she says, tone saccharine and dripping with dismissal. She doesn’t mean it; she’s _ trying _ to make nice, if only because it’s safer, but her head is throbbing and her patience is becoming thin. “Adora told me. I heard you also rescued Entrapta?”

At Entrapta’s name, Glimmer bristles. “You—”

“And Micah, too. Your father, no?” 

Here Angella stiffens.

“How do you know that?” says Glimmer, a little too quickly. “How is it possible that—”

Her mother cuts her off. There’s a silent exchange, but not unreadable; Catra watches them argue over whether or not to let her speak. In the past few days, she’s been asked why she’s here, where she came from, why she was calling out Adora’s name. She’s answered barely anything, cautious to reveal that she knows nothing herself.

Besides, they haven’t told her anything about how they got _ anyone _ from the portal world in the first place.

Glimmer wins the argument; or rather, Glimmer stops listening to her mother and steps forward, rage radiating off of her. “How do you know all of these things?” she hisses, voice so low and quiet Catra could have missed it if not for the anger seeping through it. She misses Adora; Catra hates it. Everyone misses Adora. Only Scorpia missed Catra, and _ she _ thought Catra was dead.

She wonders if Adora misses her.

Catra sighs dramatically. “I don’t care about the Horde,” she says. “I haven’t cared for months. You have no idea what happened in the portal. You have no idea what happened to Adora. Well.” She shrugs here, as if there is no personal stake in what plans she’s about to hatch. She smiles, though, a little toothy.

Frightening, to step into a role she thought she’d outgrown.

Glimmer draws her eyebrows together. “What?” 

She shrugs again.

“_What_?”

“I know how to contact her.”

After a while, Adora pulls out Catra’s pack from the Bright Moon kitchen and reorganizes it so that it fits into hers. She must have slept sometime; she can’t remember passing out, but when she catches sight of herself in a mirror, she looks a little less exhausted than the day before. She still looks wild-eyed, and lost, though — a little lonely, too.

There’s a whole world, now, and only one person in it.

Adora’s not sure what’s worse, that she’s alone or that she’s alone _ because _ it’s Catra who’s gone. She’s not sure worrying over the difference matters.

  
Scorpia brings Catra food sometimes. Quietly, though, and after hours. Catra gets the feeling this isn’t illicit — Scorpia’s too soft for that — but it’s frowned upon. She wonders if Scorpia went through a similar thing of isolation; Scorpia tends to chatter on about the flower princess, so she’s clearly settled in well, but she doesn’t look totally happy, either. Maybe she’s just adjusting.

  
  
Catra never asks, though; she rarely speaks. It’s still strange, hearing new voices and responding to new people and sometimes speaking to two at once. It mostly makes her tired, and she sleeps an embarrassing amount.

She always wakes when Scorpia comes in, though.

“I thought you died,” says Scorpia once, so reverently it takes Catra by surprise.

She’s silent for a long time, soaking in the words. _ I thought you died. _ She’s always wondered if Scorpia grieved, and she’s pleased to see that she does have some mark on this world besides a lingering feeling of “good riddance”. After a while, she opens her mouth to respond. Scorpia waits as she forms the sentence in her head, piece by piece. “I was planning to stay dead,” she admits. “I don’t belong here, look.” She gestures at her cage, her cell, her room.

Scorpia shrugs. “You will,” she says. “I didn’t think I belonged here, either.”

That makes Catra ache. She shuts her eyes. “You were never meant to be in the Horde,” she whispers without thinking, refusing to look at the expression on Scorpia’s face. She can guess well enough that in it will lie a jagged edge of heartbreak, one Catra recognizes so well because she has a matching shard.

“I’m here now,” says Scorpia, voice steadier than Catra expected. She opens an eye, and then the other. Scorpia’s expression isn’t so lost, so full of yearning for another childhood, as Catra might have expected — instead, she looks confident and sure of herself. “I’m learning about being a good friend now. About being a good _ princess_.”

Catra sighs. Somehow, Scorpia’s happiness only serves to dampen her mood. She hates herself for it; Scorpia _ deserves _ this, and yet— “Why do you come visit me?”

Scorpia looks puzzled for a moment, then shrugs again. “I figured you’re lonely.”

She’s not wrong. “I’m not lonely.” Scorpia laughs then, but it’s a little bitter; she doesn’t respond. Catra cringes inwardly. “I might be lonely,” she corrects.

“I know,” replies Scorpia.

  
  
Catra sighs again. “I don’t understand why you visit me when I say stuff like that to you.”

“It’s okay, really.”

  
  
Anger rushes through her. “No, it’s not. I’m not — I’m not! You can’t just lie down and love someone until they’re better, Scorpia. You can’t just take all these kicks to the side and pretend that because you care about someone, they don’t hurt. You can’t tell me that I’m not— that I’m—”

“Catra,” says Scorpia, very gently and earnestly, “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

Catra deflates. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ve figured a lot more things out in Bright Moon. About what I need, and what I want. And I want to be kind to you.”

“But I was terrible to you. A terrible friend.” Admitting this hurts, but feels a little better; she’s _ trying. _ She didn’t realize how much she missed this world, faults and all, until she came back. She wants to live here. She wants to live here. She wants—

“You weren’t trying to be.”

“I owe you an apology.”

Scorpia’s expression softens. “You’ve already given me one,” she says, quiet. “You only want to apologize because you think it will make you feel better. But hey, look at you, wildcat! You know what you want. Who you want. It was only a couple months ago you wouldn’t accept happiness. And I’m happy here, and you will be too.”

Catra smiles a small smile; it seems enough for Scorpia.

“Look at that,” she says, suddenly chipper. The tone switches; she begins to chatter and Catra, for once, actually listens. “Look at us,” she continues, “old friends, hanging out and having a sleepover like I always wanted. Shame about the column of light thingie—” she waves her claw in its direction, “but at least we can play cards.” 

She lifts up a deck with her other claw, and cards begin to slip out of it. “Oh. Shoot.”

Catra laughs, watching Scorpia scramble to pick up the cards, wishing she could help but secretly enjoying the scene. Something in her chest moves, shifts into place. Forgiveness tastes sweet, sweeter than the thought of a thousand years spent alone. She wants to live here — she _ will _live here. Scorpia curses in the background, and Catra laughs harder. 

Once she figures this whole mess out, she can live here.

Adora discovers the old maps in the Bright Moon library. She finds herself stuck between the two journeys — one where she makes her way back to the cottage where she spent so many months, and another where she charts her way around Etheria. That old part of her, the one that misses Catra, that part keeps her stuck on Razz’s home, is very loud. She wants to discard it, to ignore it, but the thought of repressing the memory of Catra, perhaps her last memory of Catra—

She doesn’t think about it. She’s not going to think about it.

She has a plan. She can get back to the other Etheria, the real Etheria. She can. She _ must. _

When Catra wakes, Mara stands unblinking before her. She shifts; the two of them stare each other down, and Catra wonders, for a moment, if Adora’s present, trapped, pounding at the walls of Mara’s head. When she looks for Adora in Mara’s face, she’s not there: not in the way she stands, nor in the way she looks at Catra, without any bitter fondness, nor in the way she speaks.

This is, perhaps, the most tragic thing about Bright Moon — Adora should be here. There should be traces of Adora in the rooms, in the gardens, in the habits and mannerisms of her friends, in _ Mara, _ whose body Adora occupies during dreams. Adora isn’t this tidy; echoes of her existed in the Horde for nearly a year before Catra opened the portal. Adora _ can’t _ be this tidy.

But there is no ghost story — Adora isn’t here. Catra can’t find her the way she could in the portal: in Razz’s bedsheets, in dusty Bright Moon, in the Crystal Castle. She can’t find her the way she could in the Horde: in the halls, in the echoing laughter, in her own bedspread. But Adora isn’t here, in Bright Moon. It drives her crazy. Watching Mara stand there, her blood boils — how _ dare _ she stand there and look at Catra in a way Adora never would? How _ dare _ anyone ever let Bright Moon and its inhabitants go about their day without looking like there’s a missing puzzle piece?

It’s been months. They’ve adapted. Catra knows this.

She’s still angry.

She clears her throat. “I assume Glimmer told you why I requested to see you.” Mara cocks her head, moves a little closer towards Catra. Catra’s still stuck with guards accompanying her everywhere, and mostly confined to her plush ‘cell’, but she’s trying not to let this bother her. (She’s failing).

“Yes,” says Mara, cautiously.

“Adora’s been watching through your eyes in dreams,” confirms Catra as Mara eyes her with a certain hesitation. Not everyone believes that she and Adora have reconciled. _ It’s complicated, _ a small part of her wants to explain. A much larger, more selfish part of her — a much harder part of her to ignore — doesn’t want to share her relationship with Adora at all.

She wonders if Mara can tell. She wonders if Mara has seen anything through Adora’s eyes, if Mara _ knows. _

But Mara doesn’t shift her stony expression. It looks like it sits awkwardly on her, like she’s used to laughing and seriousness doesn’t come easily. “The portal is — strange, once you arrive and leave. Your dreams, they are—” Mara pauses, as if to find words for them. Catra then wonders if Mara has seen what Catra and Adora saw when they entered the portal, that tender echo of a perfect, happy relationship. “They’re indescribable.”

_ Indescribable. _ Catra bobs her head.

“When I returned to Etheria, I dreamt of the times in which Adora became She-Ra in the portal world. I didn’t realize—” She stops herself again. “I did not realize that it was Adora, or that it was real. I thought it was as fictitious as the dreams when I left Etheria.” 

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You are saying that Adora sees me. I saw her.”

  
  
Catra nods. “It’s like a telephone line,” she offers — a test, too. Does Mara remember _ telephone lines_? Strange dreams, stranger realities. She hopes, suddenly, Mara will know what she means; Adora never spoke much about those dreams, and Catra didn’t coax them out of her. She feels sorry they didn’t discuss them now.

Mara pauses, as if deciding what to say. _ So she does know what Catra means. _“Yes. A telephone,” she says, haltingly. “But I cannot help you, yet.”

“Why?” She crosses her arms.

There’s another short silence, a tenser one. “You have not told me what you see now.”

Catra shrugs. “Like you said, indescribable.”

Mara’s eyes narrow. “Understandable,” she says, in a way that indicates it is not understandable. “But you still think we can contact Adora.” She does not make any indication she _ will, _ or that she’ll enlist Catra’s help, but Catra feels, suddenly, compelled to help her. Perhaps it’s the openness of the conversation; people have never offered information so willingly to Catra before, but Mara is an open book. She trusts Catra enough with her dreams.

Catra trusts her enough with Adora.

“Well, I mean—” she swallows. “Don’t you feel her?” Again, this feeling of anger returns: _ isn’t she here? Am I the only one looking for her, really looking? Am I the only one? _ She knows that Glimmer has coordinated several attempts to extract Adora from the portal world; she’s beginning to guess that the window that _ Catra _ passed through was meant for Adora and constructed by Glimmer. But no one has looked here, and it makes her blood boil. No one has looked.

Mara shakes her head. “I don’t know her like you,” she says, quiet. “I don’t know her.”

“I don’t know her, either,” says Catra, and at once this feels both like a terrifying truth and a blatant lie. _ I knew her. I know her. _

It doesn’t matter; Catra _ misses _ her, deep in her bones.

“Do you have an idea?” asks Mara, impatient.

Catra shrugs. “Do you know what Razz meant by ‘close the portal’?”

_ When Adora falls into a restless sleep, her dreams are strange — Catra stands before her, or rather, before Mara with an inquisitive expression. She’s encased in a circle of light, like the one they used to hold Shadow Weaver; how surreal, to see Catra like that. “Do you know what Razz meant by ‘close the portal’?” she asks, and a sort of pride washes over Mara, or no — over Adora. Catra remembers what she told her. _

_ Mara frowns. “Razz is…” _

_ “Hard to understand, I know.” _

_ A wave of emotion, again — this time Mara’s, by how alien it is. The feeling of distrust towards Catra is not unfamiliar, but pure distrust, without any love or longing or secret tenderness wrapped into it and pressing like a knife — _ that _ is unfamiliar, and all of a sudden Adora regains her sense of self. _

_ Catra pauses, and Adora knows she’s searching for Adora in Mara’s gaze, but her expression shutters when she obviously doesn’t find it, going pleasantly blank. _

_ “What,” says Mara, catching the subtle change in expression — perhaps because Adora catches it, but not realizing that Adora is the one observing Catra, the only one who can really read her. Adora feels trapped, like this, unable to speak out and ask why Catra is there, and not lying beside her, why Catra looks so tired and pained and wistful and angry. _

_ Catra lets out a long breath. “You just don’t look like her, that’s all. Guess I didn’t know her as well as I thought.” _

You do,_ thinks Adora. _I just can’t — I’m just not —

_ “As I said,” says Mara, “I don’t feel her with me.” _

You do,_ thinks Adora again, more forcefully. _I’m here. I am.

_ Catra nods, and the disappointment on her face is hidden by a steeling of her features. Determination replaces all other emotions etched into her expression; she looks past Mara and at the door, like she’s looking for a way to reach Adora, and Adora longs to reach out past the barrier of light and hold her. _

Entrapta visits Catra, once. She doesn’t say anything, though, and neither does Catra. They stare at each other for a moment, and Catra tries to find the words to express herself, or maybe apologize — she sent her to Beast Island, after all, but her patience keeps wearing thin.

Entrapta looks down. She won’t _ say _ anything, just hums and buzzes around the room like she’s got something more important to do or think about or tinker with. Soon Catra’s biting her tongue, angry that Entrapta won’t speak and angry that she herself is unable to make the first step towards some kind of reconciliation.

When Entrapta leaves, she makes no sign of coming back.

Adora transforms into She-Ra to better shoulder her pack and travel across Etheria. Her path takes her through the Whispering Woods, but she finds herself avoiding Catra’s cottage, as if unable to face the reality she might not be there. She does not sleep as she walks; she barely thinks.

Emotionless, she stares at the night sky as she tracks her journey.

When she arrives at her destination, her white books are covered in mud.

_ Catra dreams of the portal world again. _

_ She opens her mouth to speak, and instead she chirps; she folds her wings, instinctually, as if she’s been a bird her entire life. The Whispering Woods are particularly verdant today. She loves it here — something about it keeps her grounded. Perhaps it’s because below her is Adora; in dreams she can admit this, that she loves Adora. _

_ Adora is chasing her. Except it’s not Adora, but She-Ra. The switch is so quick Catra barely registers it: she’s still Adora, and Catra loves Adora, and Catra will always save Adora, not She-Ra. _

_  
_ _ A moment of lucidity comes over her, warring with the logic of dreams: Save Adora? What? But the lucidity disappears as soon as it arrives, and dream logic triumphs— _

_ Adora is chasing her, except she is She-Ra, and Adora is bleeding. All of a sudden Catra understands what is happening, having given herself over to the dream. She’s leading Adora from Dryl. Adora is thundering through the beautiful forest, eyes glowing red, veins unnaturally scarlet on her skin. She is chasing Catra. _

_ Adora is chasing Catra. Her sides are all cut up. Catra lets Adora chase her, with some urgency now. She chirps again: _ hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, _ unsure of where to lead her. Where is safe? Where will she go if Catra isn’t there to save her? Why did she go back to Dryl? _

_ Did she go back to Dryl? _

_ Adora is chasing a bird. The bird is almost Catra, barely. Catra realizes this, too — she exists twice in this world; a past Catra is gardening and sketching and making bread and pretending she isn’t angry with Adora. She has to lead Adora to herself. The mission splays out, suddenly clear before her. Triumphant, she trills again. _

_ Adora stops chasing Catra. She stumbles, form flickering, then falls to the ground. She is bleeding. She is bleeding. She is bleeding. _

Catra wakes in a cold sweat.

“I don’t understand this plan,” announces Glimmer.

Catra shrugs. “It’s not your life on the line,” she snaps. She feels bad the moment she does it; her dreams must have put her more on edge than she thought. She knows Adora doesn’t die — she _ made sure _ Adora doesn’t die, slowly, painstakingly, at the cost of her own mental health, but the possibility must still be rubbing her insides raw.

Perhaps spending months with only Adora has only fortified the love Catra has always felt for her. Perhaps spending months with only Adora has made Catra so tied to her that the possibility of loss is like cutting out a chunk of herself. This is an unsettling thought. She scrubs it from her mind.

“I agree with Glimmer,” says Mara. “I don’t understand how this will work. And then you will have the problem of Horde Prime.”  
  


“We’ll have time,” insists Catra. She’s still stuck in her prison cell; she assumes this is her rite of passage to becoming a _ trusted _ member of Bright Moon’s court. Glimmer and Mara are giving her equally unimpressed looks. She chews her lip, then adds, “Adora can become She-Ra without the sword.”

“How do you know she’ll be able to do it _ here?” _ Glimmer says, wringing her hands. Bow, beside her, nods and makes a gesture of agreement.

“Oh, you don’t trust Adora now, Sparkles? What’d it take? A couple months?”

Glimmer bristles, but to her credit, doesn’t respond. It might be due to Bow’s hand on her shoulder, heavy and calming. Catra feels a twinge of jealousy. She tries to bury it. “I just worry that this won’t work.”

“Razz seemed to indicate it would,” points out Catra. “And Adora believed Razz.”

Glimmer frowns. The _ ‘This Is What Adora Wants’ _ card is still powerful, then. “How will you remember?”

There is silence for a while, uncomfortable and thick. “How will I remember that I need to save her?” asks Catra sarcastically. She can’t give a real answer to this question, to how she knows she’ll always remember to save Adora. She thinks about her dream, the knowledge that she must save Adora three times over — leading Adora to the clearing, leading herself to Adora, tending to Adora’s wounds. “I destroyed the world for her,” she says, eventually. “I think it’s pretty obvious I can’t forget her.”

The ruins of the Fright Zone stand quiet before She-Ra. They don’t glow; they don’t hum. Without the electricity and bustle they make a strange kind of ruin — blackened like they’ve been burnt, eerie like they’re haunted. She pauses before them, her mud-darkened boots digging into the cracked earth as she studies the empty hulls of buildings.

Somehow, the silence is so much worse than at Bright Moon. She-Ra — no, _ Adora _ — remembers the Fright Zone as an alive thing; it creaked and hummed and whirred. There was never a silent, still moment. The halls were always lit. The buildings were always cast in green. It was a comfortable thing, that the Fright Zone felt the same at night as during the day.

Now, staring at it, Adora barely recognizes the structure before her. She can study it as an objectively ugly thing because it’s no longer _ hers, _ no longer the thing she yearned for all those sleepless nights when she first arrived at Bright Moon and then hated herself for missing.

This feels like it should allow her more ease to enter, but it stops her. Without Catra there beside her to lead her in, she finds herself paralyzed, unsure if she can enter. She casts a look at the sky above her, and then the ground beneath her, searching for a familiar thing and finding that even they look unfamiliar in the wake of the silent Fright Zone.

She misses Catra so acutely here her heart burns. She’s been emotionless for days, but now a lump forms in her throat and tears prick at her eyes. She can almost make out the memory of the two of them, jumping from pipe to platform to pipe and laughing all the while over the hum of machinery.

Her vision blurs suddenly with tears. She wipes at her cheeks, which she realizes with some surprise are wet and finds herself slowly shrinking back into Adora. “I hate this,” she says aloud, but there is no relief in it — the world remains just as silent once she stops as it was before. She can’t fill the quiet — she’s not loud enough or loud long enough to make the Fright Zone feel like what it used to be.

“I hate it here,” she calls, and her voice echoes along the metal buildings. This just serves to emphasize how dead the Fright Zone has become. 

She wonders why Catra never came back here, and then wonders why she never thought to ask. 

It doesn’t matter, though: she stuffs her emotions back into that overfull box in her mind and lifts a foot. Then she lifts another. That’s the way she arrives at the base of Fright Zone: one step after another, breathing steady, and feeling numb.

Entrapta visits Catra again, of her own accord. Catra’s surprised she can barely bring herself to make eye contact. Entrapta’s silent for a while, nervous, maybe — like she wants to ask about the portal but is afraid to. Catra bites down the urge to snap at her; how can she if she sent her to Beast Island?

  
  
How can she do anything but wait for forgiveness, stuck in her cell?

She wants it, too — more badly than she cares to admit. She swallows. “Hello,” she says. “How are you?”

Entrapta hums, quiet still. “Tell me about your dreams,” she says.

Catra nods. She does, slowly; she recounts the shared ones with Adora, and then Adora’s, just in case, and then her own, now, as a bird. Entrapta interrupts to ask for details in her overly-interested and enthusiastic way; Catra bites her tongue when she does, and answers as accordingly as she can. Entrapta listens, though, the way she used to — careful and curious and thoughtful.

It makes Catra more guilty.

“So Adora can’t always remember she’s Adora in her dreams?” asks Entrapta, making her calculating expression.

“I don’t know! She didn’t like to talk about it,” snaps Catra, and then sighs. “Shit. I’m sorry, I’m just— why are you talking to me?”

“You have interesting information,” says Entrapta.

Catra rolls her eyes. “I sent you to an island where you nearly died.”

“It had First Ones’ tech.”

“I’m sorry, okay!” she shouts, riled up for no reason at all. “That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m sorry. I destroyed your relationship with Hordak, and now — I don’t know what happened to him since I opened the portal, or to you on that island, but I’m sure it’s terrible, and I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“Catra,” says Entrapta, and Catra stops speaking. “Are we friends?”

“What?”

“Are we friends?”

“We were,” responds Catra, sighing. “Maybe we will be again.”

Entrapta nods, brisk. “Hordak is also in a cell. Glimmer hasn’t decided what to do with him.”

Catra sighs inwardly, feeling suddenly for Glimmer. What do you do with a colonizer? Someone who destroyed the planet and tried to kill its indigenous inhabitants, someone who organized the abduction of infants for training, someone who abused everyone around them, someone who hurt and maimed and tried to bring doom around him? What do you do when someone loves him?

“This information is so interesting,” says Entrapta, looking over her notebook — when did she get a notebook? — and scribbling on it with a piece of hair, “tell me about your dreams again.”

It’s nearly forgiveness. It’s not much at all, really, save for a shift — it’s a maybe, a one day, an eventuality. That’s enough. If Entrapta can love Hordak, horrible, terrible Hordak, she can forgive Catra.

  
That’s enough.

_ The dream that comes next is unexpected; while she may be prepared for it, she's still startled by how strange it is to be a bird. She’s perched over Razz’s window; Catra’s window, by this point — she can see herself inside looking tired and sad and — and angry. She chirps. _

_ The past-Catra looks up. _

_ Now-Catra chirps again. _

_ Catra is chasing herself. She does not know where she is going — now-Catra can remember her adrenaline, the carelessness in the way she throws herself across clearings to keep up. _ Hurry, _ chirps now-Catra. _ Hurry hurry hurry. _ She knows that once she reaches Adora she will wake up. She knows that once she reaches Adora, she will save her. She is both Catras at once, reliving the memory in two dizzying perspectives. _

_ She wonders if this is a side effect of falling into the portal, of corruption — a piece of her will always be stuck in this world, as a bird, as herself, as something else entirely. She doesn’t feel like she’s lost something. _

_ She doesn’t feel much at all, except a sense of urgency. Past-Catra continues to chase her. _

Hurry,_ she chirps. _Adora’s bleeding.


	6. pink camellias

Adora pries open the door to the Fright Zone, wrenching an opening large enough to squeeze through. The hallways are dark; when she walks, half of the motion-sensor lights flicker to life, casting an eerie glow over the walls. Her own shadow looks unfamiliar to her — she watches how it moves before continuing forward.

Her eyes strain to see what’s in front of her, but old memory kicks in; like habit, she turns into hallways that are pitch black because her feet know the way better than her eyes. She expects this realization to burn her, that the Fright Zone is cemented into her memory, that her _ childhood _ is cemented into her memory, but no complicated feelings arise at all.

All seeing her childhood home like this, empty and quiet and sad — all it does is make her even more numb. At this rate, she thinks grimly, maybe she won’t even miss Catra.

She refuses to recognize how much this thought terrifies her.

Catra wakes one day without a barrier. There are guards though, hovering nervously beside a smiling Bow. “Hey,” he says, with an awkward wave that dampers his facade of confidence. “We thought we could trust you with the ability to walk throughout the castle. You know, if you wanted.”

Catra gives him a long, bored look. 

He shifts his weight from foot to foot under the apathy of her stare.

“Did you give that freedom to Shadow Weaver?” she finally says in a drawling, bored way, like she doesn’t care about his answer. 

The question obviously takes him by surprise, and he flinches. “I don’t—”

“Or Hordak?”

He gulps. “I—”

“Listen, Bow,” says Catra, gathering herself. She’s surprised with how angry she is, no matter her cool appearance. She’s surprised how much she wants to walk out on him now that she can. She’s surprised how much arguing with him makes her miss Adora even more acutely. “I know this is some olive branch, here—” she motions at the guards dismissively “—but I won’t forget how quick the rebellion was to forgive Shadow Weaver and how long it took them to forgive me.”

“Catra,” he replies, placating, in a way so similar to Adora that it’s her who flinches. “This offer isn’t meant to be an insult. We...were wrong about Shadow Weaver. Micah disagreed, you know, with Glimmer’s judgement. And everyone agrees that we can trust you more than we have.”

“Aw, you’re good with words,” replies Catra in a tone that indicates she doesn’t really believe that to be true, “Is that why they sent you?”

He drags his hands down his face in frustration. “Look,” he says, “this is a nice thing.”

“You don’t get to decide what a nice thing is.” She takes a step forward, and the guards take a step closer, and Bow takes a very large step back. “Maybe I haven’t decided to trust you all yet. Maybe I haven’t decided this is a nice thing.”

He frowns. “What choice do any of us have?”

The question dumbfounds her. “What?” she’s asking before she realizes how silly it is to ask. Of course they don’t trust her out of goodwill. The rebellion has never been candy and rainbows the way Adora thinks it is. _ What choice do any of us have? _ What choice does _ she _ have? Where can she even go?

Would she leave Adora?

“Horde Prime,” he says, by way of explanation. “We need — we need Adora.”

“So you wouldn’t go get her if you didn’t need her.”

  
  
“No!” His voice cracks over his answer. “No, we would get her anyway. We just — might have been a little slower to trust you.”

“So this isn’t really trust,” she replies, and her smile is a little sharp. “You just _ need _ me.”

“I’d like to get to a point of goodwill,” he says, honestly, and suddenly Catra realizes she’s not totally right in her assessment of the princesses. That nuance is exactly why they sent Bow: he also really does believe in sunshine and rainbows and glitter. _ His _ idea of the rebellion is the one that enchants Adora. Bow takes a deep breath before he continues. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen in a few days. And I respect that.”

“Do you?” she replies.

“What?”

“Do you respect that _ I _ don’t trust you? That I don’t like you — any of you — for completely valid reasons?”

He drags his hands down his face again. That’s a no. Huh. “That might be a good start,” she says, pushing past him and towards the door. She loves that she has the ability to stalk off, leaving him frustrated and confused and _ guilty, _ emotions she hasn’t been able to escape as of late. “You know, if you actually cared about goodwill,” she calls behind her, and doesn’t look back.

The guards undercut the moment a little when they follow her, though.

Adora stands above her old barracks; she’s just slept there and though she _ knows _ she should feel hopeful, she does not. She notices that at some point, the drawing Catra made of them was scratched through. She chews on her lips, wondering if the claw marks are Catra’s the way she thinks they are — what a history of anger and pain they have. What a history they were _ just _ working through.

She thinks of Catra in Bright Moon, unhappy and trapped and lonely; she wonders if she’ll ever get home, or if she’ll only be able to watch Catra grow old and never speak to her. The thought is endlessly depressing, but once she’s thought it, she can’t stop imagining it — watching Catra fall for another girl, watching Catra fall into Bright Moon life, watching and waiting and being forgotten and never being able to say goodbye.

She feels that lump grow again and swallows. Time to move on. She presses her palms into her eyes, hard, then pulls them away and stands up. She takes a last lingering look, as if to memorize the room — like it’s not burned into her memory anyway — and walks out. The sound of her footsteps echoes in the empty room; she tries to ignore them and the terrifying silence that hangs in every corner. She has work to do.

Micah finds Catra in the room they’ve repurposed for her to stay in and sits on one of her chairs. She’s surprised, when she sees him — she’s heard his name from Adora, from Bow, and from whispers around Bright Moon, but has never seen him. She doesn’t expect his height, or the haunted look in his eye, or how he keeps smiling goodnaturedly. “I heard about your talk with Bow,” he says.

“Micah,” she responds, as if naming him gives her any power.

His expression becomes even more genuinely pleasant, if that’s possible. “No one here knows what to do with you.”

She likes that. It makes her feel a little less helpless, shut up in this castle that’s too alive for its own good. “But they did know what to do with Shadow Weaver?” she says, and then feels stupid for playing this card again, and so soon.

But his face draws itself taut with sadness and regret. “She taught me, you know,” he replies, and to this she is silent. “She made me a great magician, but she also—” he sighs. “I don’t talk about my time under her with my daughter, and hardly ever with my wife. That pain, though, will stay with me.”

She regards him curiously, then, her interest piqued.

“Everyone here is so focused on the war, and the rebellion — both what it was and what it will be against Horde Prime. The Horde trapped me on Beast Island for about a decade; I’m sure you learned that from Adora. I have every right to hate them.”

Adora’s name hits her like a slap. “So you have every right to hate me,” she says bitterly.

“No.” He frowns at her. “How old are you? Eighteen, maybe?” She shrugs; she’s never known her birthday. She and the other cadets had no true age — just ranks to signify their approximate ability in battle, and how long they had left. She’ll never know, either; not even the portal-induced dreams revealed that to her the way they revealed Adora’s birthday to them both.

“How can I hate a child who was indoctrinated into war?” he continues, watching her. “How can I hate you for hating _ me, _ the reason you were indoctrinated? My wife and I — and all the princesses — represented the war the Horde was waging; I mean, how can it not be our fault that through resisting the Horde decided it needed child soldiers to fight against us? How can I blame you for wanting to watch the world burn when the only thing you loved left you?” He stops. “Or did I not get that last one right?”

She keeps her face stony, unwilling to give him the truth, that he is completely and utterly right.

“I would not trust us, either,” he says, “if I had realized we were working with Shadow Weaver.” 

When she speaks, her voice betrays her with a waver. “Are you?”

“Not anymore.”

She nods, curt and short and quietly relieved.

“I do not know you, Catra,” he says, “because I never fought you. And isn’t that a horrible thing to have to say to a child? Here is a better one: I can know you now. There is still time for these things; I hope Bright Moon will redeem itself to you and that you can redeem yourself to Bright Moon.”  
  
She shrugs, trying to be nonchalant.

“Not now, of course, if you are not ready,” he adds. “Or ever, if that’s what you decide. But if you do want it, my door is open to you, to discuss old memories. And when we get Adora, she will be welcome, too.”

When we get Adora.

She feels the unbearable urge to cry.

“That’s all I have to say,” he says, standing. “I hope it’s enough.” And then he leaves.

_ Adora dreams of Catra, flanked by two guards. Razz is there, too, and Mara. Mara must be there. Adora’s still dreaming from her perspective. “Close the portal, Adora,” Razz is saying, and Catra is tapping her feet impatiently. Adora is frustrated, too — or no, Mara is. She’s surprised that this frustration leaks into her own consciousness. This is Mara’s frustration, not Adora’s, but it’s beginning to feel like Adora’s as well. “The portal is a barrier,” continues Razz, “or a gate from Despandos. You must close the gate.” _

_ “Why?” Catra is saying, pushing forward. “Why must she close the gate?” _

_ “To come home,” replies Razz, confused. “She must come home, no?” _

_ The look on Catra’s face — pained and aching and full of longing — it kills Mara. No, Adora, this feeling is certainly Adora’s. She feels that tender feeling again, one that is paired with — or even caused by — the knowledge Catra is looking for her. _ I miss you, _ she tries to say, and then, _ I’m right here. _ Is she, though? She’s having a hard time differentiating between herself and Mara, but when Catra turns to gaze at Mara— _

_ Adora can’t help it; under the strength of Catra’s gaze every atom in her body — _ Mara’s _ body — is drawn forward as if drawn into orbit. _ I miss you, _ she shouts again, with everything she can, with every shred of consciousness. _

Listen,_ she screams. _Listen. I’m here.

I’m here.

_ She feels some sort of surprise and understanding cast itself over Mara; Adora’s certain this is Mara’s surprise and Mara’s understanding. Catra looks at Mara like she’s looking a little deeper, like when Razz can see something that everyone else cannot. _ I’m right here, _ thinks Adora a little more desperately. _I’m right here. I’ve been here this entire time. Please find me. 

Please find me.

Please find me.

_ “Please find me,” repeats Mara to herself under her breath, confused, and then — oh. And then Mara smiles, wide, and Catra’s ear perks up. _

_ They know. “She’s here,” says Mara, louder, and the people around her begin to look a little more interested. Razz looks exactly the same, with that piercing gaze, as if she’s known — perhaps always known — since the moment Adora started dreaming. _

_ There’s a long silence in which no one says anything. _

_ Finally — “Hey, Adora,” says Catra. She’s smiling softly. Every part of Adora’s consciousness sings. _

_ “She misses you,” replies Mara. _

_ Catra scoffs, her expression full of that old longing and sadness and a little bit of hope. “We’ve got a lot to catch you up on,” she says, pleased with herself and the situation and hearing Catra’s voice directed at her — it makes Adora want to weep. Anyone else, she knows, might ask Mara to relay it, but she’s certain now that Catra can see her, maybe even feel her, Catra knows she’s present. _

I miss you,_ she thinks. _

_ “I know,” replies Catra, before Mara opens her mouth. “I know.” _

Scorpia continues to visit Catra. She teaches her different card games that the princesses play. It’s strange, the two of them, actually equals for once — Catra’s surprised at how well Scorpia fits into the court here and still maintains a relationship with a prisoner and war criminal.

It’s good, though; something about their moments, filled with Scorpia’s chattering and Catra’s quiet, fills a small hole in her heart. When Scorpia passes her another round, or plays a trump card with roaring laughter, her ache for Adora dulls, just for a moment. Something settles, just a little bit. Among the stupid members of Bright Moon, Catra finds herself expecting that maybe they’ll come around eventually, with enough prodding and snapping and bargaining.

Scorpia hands her this hope as they play Poker, Black Jack, Spit, Crimson Waste Rat Slap.

Catra takes it greedily.

Adora hovers over Hordak’s warped and destroyed workroom. She pokes through crumbled mess of what was the portal, curious, and then frustrated. Wire hangs from the ceiling; it’s impossible to tell what was a portal and what is destroyed pet projects. She kicks at a beam, and swears when it proves to be solid and immovable.

Her toe throbs.

The sanctum is a mess; it’s unsalvageable.

She frustratedly picks at some tools lying around, trying to figure out what to do with them. The thing Entrapta used to use, the one that cast a blue flame — it doesn’t work under her hands. She fiddles with it, trying to make it light so that she can prove to herself she can _ do something, _ but nothing happens, no matter what she presses or pulls or twists.

It doesn’t make her feel better when she remembers that even if she did produce a flame, she’d have no idea what to do with it.

Another tool: a wrench, with nothing to pull tight.

Another tool: the cracked remote for an even more cracked screen.

Another: a hammer. 

Some shards of glass crunch at her feet. She sweeps her hand over the dusty surface and tools and debris alike crash to the ground. She kicks at the pile, and all it does is shift around her foot. She wants to scream.

She wants to be able to do _ something. _

She wants to go home.

It’s that thought that hits Adora like a brick wall. All her emotions come rushing back: the echoes of her childhood spent here with Catra; the lingering fear of a lurking Shadow Weaver, always behind a corner; her old self, measured only by how fast she was and how many weights she could lift and how much time she spent training and not by whether or not she could yield a magical sword.

All of it hits her square in the chest. She wants to go _ home, _though at this point she’s not even sure where that is: whether that’s Razz’s hut with Catra, or a more lively Brightmoon, or a Horde swaddled in idealism.

She wants to go home, and she’s stuck here — or until Catra figures out a way to get her back home. 

If Catra can figure out a way to get her back home. If Catra even wants her back home.

She slides to her knees and presses her hands to her face, rocking slightly. By the time she hits the ground, she’s already crying; her sobs only worsen as her knees find the floor. She wants — she wants so badly every part of her aches. The sound of her crying fills the workroom, echoes, bounces along the walls and hanging wires.

She just wants to go home.

“I’ve never understood why Adora cared about you.”

Catra’s head snaps up from her book; she casts a look around Bright Moon’s library, scanning for other people before she responds. She closes her book with a snap and smiles, a little toothy, a little dangerously. Glimmer’s expression is unmoved. “Glimmer,” she says smoothly. “Nice to see you, too.” The guards on either end of the reading table totter uncomfortably. 

Glimmer sits across from her, folding her hands. “I’ve never understood—”

“I heard the first time.”

“Oh. Well.” Glimmer raps her fingers against the table. The sound echoes in the cavernous room. Catra does her best not to flinch and, instead, looks disinterestedly in Glimmer’s direction. “I had a long conversation with my dad about Shadow Weaver. I didn’t realize—” she pauses, and here Catra’s ears perk up without her permission “—I didn’t realize how she was manipulating me. How she hurt him. How she hurt—” she swallows. This must be hard for her. “How she hurt Adora, and you.”

Catra raises an eyebrow. 

“Sorry,” she says, and puts her head in her hands. “I’m not good at this. I just mean.” She sighs. “Bow told me about what you said earlier.”

“Of course,” replies Catra sarcastically. “The Best Friends Squad doesn’t lie to each other.”

Glimmer winces visibly. “I’m trying to be nice to you,” she says. “Why are you making it so hard?”

“Maybe,” says Catra, rolling her eyes, “because everyone in Bright Moon treats kindness like a gift I should be grateful for. I’m not grateful that I’m apprehended by guards and that no one trusts me here. I could have left weeks ago. I haven’t because I want to rescue Adora. I don’t care about Bright Moon. I don’t care about you.”  
  
“What about Horde Prime?”  
  


Catra shrugs. 

Glimmer sighs loudly. “So you don’t care. Great. All I was just trying to say is — I mean, if you have a childhood like that, I guess I understand why Adora loved you through all the shit you pulled. I didn’t understand before why she couldn’t move on, but now — maybe I get it a little more. That’s all.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you _ guess _ you’re not that mad that you guys accidentally fished me out of the portal instead of Adora?”

“How do you know about that?”

Catra stares at Glimmer until she wilts. “How do you think?” she says, eventually, raising an eyebrow unimpressedly.

“Whatever,” says Glimmer. “I’m just saying I get it, or I understand a little better, I guess.”

“Wow, thanks.”

“I’m trying to be nice!” Glimmer squeaks suddenly, expression turning frustrated.

“Well, try harder,” snaps Catra. “You’re just telling me Adora loved me — past tense — because of our shared traumatic childhood. No judgements about character, nothing. You barely know what happened between us in the portal, and after talking to your dad _ one time _ you think you’ve got me and my relationship with her all figured out.” She pushes away from her chair. “Listen. I don’t care anymore about Bright Moon politics and saving the world and all that nonsense,” she lies, and for a moment she believes it to be true. “I just want to be left alone.”

Glimmer watches her as she gets up to reshelve her book, making no move to follow her. _ Good, _ Catra thinks, _ maybe she understands. _

She ignores the fact that she’s not sure what she wants Glimmer to understand.

Later, Catra goes to visit Hordak. He does not look up when she enters the room; his eyes are cast downward the entire time she looks at him. It’s morbidly wonderful to see him defeated like this — suit cracked and the room full of his wheezing. Imp isn’t beside him; it makes the room even more silent, even more lonely. She peers through the blue light at him: he’s trapped in a light column like she once was.

She looks at him for a long time. He does not move. “Fuck you,” she says, after a long silence, and spits. The glob of spit passes through the column and sticks onto his forehead. He still does not react.

She doesn’t feel any better when she leaves.

  
Adora doesn’t look back when she leaves the Fright Zone. Her pack is noticeably lighter, her heart heavier. She doesn’t cry as she treads back to Bright Moon; she feels like she ran out of tears a long time ago. She just feels tired, like if she slept for a hundred years she still wouldn’t feel better.

She keeps walking, though. That’s what she’s good at: marching when there’s nothing else left to do. A mark of a true soldier, but not much else.

Shadow Weaver doesn’t move or change position when she enters the greenhouse. She just keeps cutting leaves off of her roses. “Hello,” says Catra, mostly to provoke a reaction.

“Oh,” drawls Shadow Weaver, in that bored and disappointed way of hers, one Catra has been mimicking her whole life. She turns to look at Catra with her gaze full of apathy, another thing Catra has mimicked for as long as she can remember. The real tone, paired with this stare — not Catra’s crude imitation of it — cuts her to the bone. “It’s you.”

Catra surveys the garden for a long time instead of looking at her former caretaker (_ former mother, _ an small, angry voice in her head supplies); it feels strange that both of them had gravitated towards gardening in different prisons. “Your roses are underwatered,” she says, simply, lifting a drooping stem. She holds the flower in her palm gently. “And you’re pruning them too much. The flowers look naked without their leaves.” 

“I like them.”

Catra shrugs. “You’re killing them.”

  
  
“You barely had the patience to get through an exercise as a cadet,” sneers Shadow Weaver. “How can I believe you have the patience for gardening?”

An old wound reopens and her heart aches a little more. “Maybe you just don’t know me very well,” she says, opting to roll her eyes. “It’s not like you ever did anything besides hold me back.” 

Shadow Weaver’s eyes flick up then and search her face. Catra’s pleased to notice a jagged crack down her mask, like maybe Bright Moon has been treating her worse than she had assumed, but then she recalls the horrible scarred thing beneath it, and winces a little inwardly. Shadow Weaver catches the disgust; her eyes narrow in disappointment. “You aren’t wearing your mask,” she remarks.

“I left it in the portal.”

“You were always careless.”

“Maybe it was a choice.” Catra’s leaning into this too much; she yanks her emotions back and forces herself to take a deep breath. She’s not even sure why she’s here, or why she chose to provoke Shadow Weaver in this way. Maybe she wants an apology she’ll never get, or maybe she’s disappointed by her interaction with Hordak.

“You're not clever enough for that.”

A wave of anger overtakes her; the reeled in emotions wash over her once more. “How would you know?” she snaps.

“Catra,” replies Shadow Weaver in her most maternal and finger-curling tone of voice, reaching out to touch Catra’s hair, “I raised you.” 

Catra bats her hand away. “You didn’t do a very good job.” She smiles, always too toothy, always a little feral. “I’m still a little wild, see?” Her claws are sharp and glinting in the sunlight. She knows it would cause a commotion, but she feels justified in using them, if only she could just let herself—

“Some things just aren’t trainable.”

  
  
“Or some things aren’t cut out to be mothers,” calls a third voice; a hand settles on Catra’s shoulder. She jumps, and swivels: there’s Micah looking down at her with a soft expression, and then glancing at Shadow Weaver with such distaste that even Catra recoils a little bit. “Light Spinner,” he adds, voice grim.

“Micah,” replies Shadow Weaver darkly. “Pleasure to see you.” 

“I see you’re still a hag.”

Catra snorts without meaning to; the pleasure she gets from Micah’s insult is just too great. He looks down at her with some concern, and upon seeing her delighted face, smiles a bit, though the expression is more sad — like _ he, _somehow, is the one who has disappointed her. “I’m sorry she’s like this,” he says. And then, after some thought, “I’m sorry she decided to raise you.”

“Not much raising,” shrugs Catra, and his hand on her shoulder tightens.

“Evidently,” he replies with a voice full of venom. “Shadow Weaver never took to looking after things. I’m not surprised if she’s not a very good gardener.” 

Shadow Weaver bristles, but doesn’t respond. “Do you want to go?” he continues, looking at Catra and motioning towards the door. “The kitchens just made some excellent pastries, if you want one.”

  
  
Catra pauses. She casts a long glance at Shadow Weaver, chewing on her lip. “Yeah,” she says eventually. “I’m not going to get what I’m looking for here.”

When he smiles at her, more genuinely happy this time, she knows she’s made the right choice.

“We’re nearly ready,” Glimmer tells her one day. Bow stands beside her.

“Okay,” says Catra.

She screws up her mouth. “And—” here Bow nudges Glimmer forward “—I’m sorry. About earlier. You’re right. I don’t know much about why Adora cares so much about you. When we get her back, I’ll ask her. I wish — I wish I had more time to try and come to a better understanding of each other.”

Catra laughs — a good laugh — and nods. Glimmer looks at her worriedly, then breaks into laughter, too: a princess and a Horde leader, trying to understand each other is such an absurd thought that they bask in its strangeness for a moment before recovering. Her offer, the laughter shared between them: that’s enough for Catra, for now. She places a hand on Glimemr’s shoulder. “We’ll get there, Sparkles.”

Glimmer snorts, and retreats from Catra’s room, but the air as she leaves is much less tense, less angry. Catra smiles and opens her book.

_ Adora dreams of Mara stepping into the room where Entrapta and Bow have been working. Micah stands over a worktable where Entrapta is fitting two pieces together, talking in a low voice — presumably chanting incantations. Glimmer, beside him, listens carefully, her fingers drawing tiny shapes at her side; the whole room is pulsing with noise and low light. _

_ When she enters, Bow looks up and waves. “We’re almost ready,” he says, face open and bright with hope. “Can you tell her that?” _

_ “I can’t usually tell when she’s here,” admits Mara. “I hope she knows.” _

_ “We just have to get Catra. She’s the one that volunteered. I mean, I guess you know that.” He wrings his hands; he must be a little nervous. “Entrapta has gone over everything with her; she knows what she has to do the moment the lever is pulled. She’ll be here in a few moments.” _

_ “I’m here now,” calls Catra, from the other end of the room. “How much longer?” _

_  
_ _  
_ _ “Uh,” responds Bow, looking over to Entrapta and Micah. Micah stops muttering and looks up. _

_ “Oh! Mara, Catra! Good timing. We are…almost ready. Entrapta?” _

_ “Yes, yes,” says Entrapta, moving to fix the piece they’ve been working on into the portal. Mara offers up the sword. Each piece is carved with runes; as Entrapta fixes the sword into position, Mara admires the artistry of the machine. Adora can tell she’s impressed by the mix of Etherian magic and Eternian technology. “Okay,” Entrapta says finally. “It’s complete.” _

_ “Is it safe?” Mara asks. _

_ “No.” _

_ Mara’s mouth twists. “How unsafe?” _

_ “Safe enough,” snaps Catra. _

_ Silence settles in the room. The people standing there share nervous glances. Bow shifts his weight from leg to leg, antsy; Entrapta fiddles with a tool. It’s the first time Adora’s seen them all nervous all at once. Even Glimmer, whose face is usually set in determination in situations like this, is looking uncertain. Only Catra looks sure. _

_ “You know,” says Glimmer to Catra, frowning. Adora, through Mara, watches Catra’s face almost hungrily, trying to gleam her innermost thoughts, whether or not she’s truly sure of herself. “You don’t have to do this. Would she do it for you?” _

_ Catra looks at her for a long time, gaze steady. “Does it matter?” _

_ She pulls the lever before anyone else can ask her another question. _

A bird chirps in Bright Moon. Adora, exhausted and forlorn, looks up at it with a kind of tired wonder — _ what now? _she thinks at it, surprised to see it and yet, in her bones, not surprised at all. She feels uncertain, all of a sudden, untrusting of the urge to follow it; she’s already travelled so much in the past couple of days. Her feet are still sore from walking.

She closes her eyes and in her memory looms Catra’s face, wide with surprise, claws passing through a phantom sword. Adora scrubs at her temples; being back at Bright Moon has made it impossible to repress any longing she has. It’s not her fault; they had had a plan. They had —

The bird chirps insistently at her.

“What?” she calls at it now, frustrated, and pulls her aching body off of the bed and towards it. “How did you even get in here?” Belatedly, she realizes this is a stupid question. How did the bird get into the portal in the first place? It doesn’t matter; she finds herself angry with it, as if somehow it’s replaced Catra, weeks after the fact, and then tired again for such a silly thought.

She isn’t sure what she wants to do. She keeps trying to catalogue what is good for her, what’s for the best, to pull herself together and work on _ survival _ and then, at some later point, processing Catra’s disappearance. It’s not like her dream has come true — she’s still here, isn’t she? She wonders suddenly if it was her fault, as if she hasn’t done something she needed to, and then immediately tucks that thought away. 

It’s a particularly stubborn anxiety, though, that worms its way through the cracks in her half-made plans. If she had listened to Catra about the sword, would Catra still be here? If she had paid attention to her dreams, would she be there with Catra?

The bird chirps again, as if insistently. But what could she have done, she tries to reason to herself, about conjuring the sword subconsciously? Or about wrestling those details from her subconscious?

Another chirp. She massages her forehead. Maybe she could talk to Light Hope.

Again, a chirp.

“Shut up,” she says, but it does not startle. “Shut up!” she cries and stands up to shoo it away from the windowsill of her bedroom, and though it moves out of reach, it does not stop making noises at her.

She’s exhausted.

The portal back didn’t work.

Catra’s still gone.

  
And yet — there’s some primal urge in her to follow it, the same as the one that led her to the sword, that made her recognize the portal fantasy as a falsehood. She can’t help it; she gets up and follows so obediently it feels like habit, and it hops from room to room. It’s slow going, and strange. The hallways echo weirdly, as if Adora expects silence from the world around her, and now that there is noise, it is foreign.

She supposes she’s grown used to the one thing that sets her on edge.

That thought, more than any other, makes her ache once more — alone, again, for sure this time, and _ used _ to it. She tries to think of a more horrible thing, and finds she cannot, before a voice, suspiciously like Catra’s, echoes in her mind, saying, _ have you ever tried to think of a more horrible situation in your life? Or have you been too focused on getting through another day? _

The thought is cutting, unsettling, unfortunately true: Adora has never been satisfied with her lot, but she’s never been _ unsatisfied, _ either. She wonders how to explain that, that inability of hers to know what she wants, exactly, unable to find it even through the exercise of picturing what she definitely does not want — so long as Adora can help people, has a mission, she has considered herself content.

She knows Catra would understand. She knows, also, Catra would disagree.

She hates that she’s reopened that old wound, that old connection between them; she worries she’ll never be rid of it. Catra is as much a part of her as her own inner voice, and this truth is as startling as all of the others while also being completely unexpected. She wonders, then—

Another chirp. The bird is looking insistently at her, if birds could look insistent.

They are in a room. Adora’s never been here before. It’s windowless, like a closet, and bare, if not a little dusty. She frowns down at the bird. There’s nothing there, save for the shape of a thing — a sword, Adora would say, if she were to guess — but maybe that’s her subconscious. Maybe that’s just what she wants to see so desperately. The bird bounces around it, circling it, this shadowy thing, so Adora goes closer too. A compulsion takes over her, then, to touch it—

She reaches out, trying to feel for the faint difference in the air, which is warmer, maybe, than the rest of the room—

Her eyes widen in shock as she realizes—

The world goes very still.


	7. lavender

_ When Catra pulls the lever, the world goes very still. _

Adora and Catra meet at age thirteen, gangly and awkward and almost too much for each other. Adora wears sports shorts — the cotton and red kind — and she’s still shaving her legs even though she wishes she didn’t have to. Her hair is always up, partially because of Camp Bright Moon’s thick, impossible heat (the San Bernardino mountains are always too-warm in the summertime) and partially because she hates the way it looks down. She wears her tye-dye shirts from her past camp years almost every day, which are too big for her frame, and she sometimes wears socks and Tevas instead of running shoes.

The other kids think she’s awkward, and too-loud, and unfunny. Catra, on the other hand, is too quiet, too mean, too bristly. 

Adora meets Catra because she’s too pale to go out swimming in the lake, and forgot her waterproof sunscreen besides; Catra sees her watching her curiously and snaps, “I forgot a bathing suit,” in a defensive way that _ really _ means: _ and please do not offer me yours. _ Adora holds out her 3DS equally defensively, just to say _ I wasn’t gonna ask. Or offer. _

“I forgot sunscreen,” Adora adds miserably, because now she feels like she also needs an excuse.

“Isn’t your mom in charge of this camp?”

Adora shrugs. She doesn’t like being reminded of this. “She said she doesn’t have any extra waterproof one with a high enough SPF.” And then, “You’re Catra right? You’re new.”

This isn’t actually their first interaction: Adora’s still thinking about how they’re bunk mates and how Catra didn’t introduce herself to the other girls even though she’s the newest out of all of them, if only because Adora’s Mama makes her go to summer camp every year since they can’t afford childcare, and besides Mara owns the place. She doesn’t mention that, though. Catra crinkles her nose in something akin to frustration. “Yeah, and?”

Mara has said that Catra used to go to a different summer camp, but when Adora asked, Catra wouldn’t tell her which one. Catra has barely talked to Adora; it's all very annoying, because Adora knows Catra’s the only other girl who plays Pokémon. Adora shrugs in Catra’s direction. “I just wanted someone to battle, I guess,” she says, gesturing again at her DS. “I saw you were playing the new game earlier.”

Catra raises an eyebrow, slowly. She readjusts her skirt, which has a daisy patterning that Adora personally doesn’t think fits Catra very well at all, from what she knows of the other girl. She’s also always wearing cat-ear headbands, which is funny, but cool, too; she pushes the red one she’s wearing today up further over her head and says, “Have you got the new game, too?” 

Adora nods and scrambles to pull it out. They battle three or four times; each time her Blaziken meets Catra’s Swampert and she realizes she’s going to lose. “Why’d you decide to come to this camp?” she says, once, while Catra one hit K.O.s her Swellow. Catra’s a little on the quiet side, but that’s okay — Adora likes to talk.

At this question, Catra stops and looks at her for a long time. “I needed to meet someone,” she says, distantly, and for a fraction of a section Adora can imagine her cat-ear headband as real ears at the top of her head before the thought clears entirely and both of them are staring at each other, unsure if the other felt it and unable to describe what, exactly, passed between them. 

“Oh.” Adora sends out her Gyrados, shakes her head, and clears the strange feeling from her mind.

That summer they play cards by the lake a lot. Adora asks, every once in a while, if Catra misses swimming, and Catra shrugs, as if nonchalant. She doesn’t mind that they don’t swim, though: she watches Catra’s long fingers shuffle the cards for Egyptian Ratslap, for Spit, for Rummy. Catra always shuffles, and Adora always watches.

“I had a dream last night we went swimming,” Catra mentions once as the cards slide through her hands. 

“Yeah? Was it a nightmare?” Adora laughs; Catra rolls her eyes affectionately and splits the deck again. She doesn’t make a cat joke, because Catra gets sensitive about her name.

“Kinda. You pushed me in.” She splays the cards out and then pulls them back into their tight stack, begins to sort them into two piles, red-back on top of red-back on top of red-back. 

Adora frowns. “I’d never do that,” she says, suddenly defensive, watching Catra deal two piles between them, watching them grow into tiny towers.

Catra shrugs. “I know,” she says. “It’s just a dream, Adora.”

She’s finished now, and the two stacks sit lonely between them. Catra’s always been a fast dealer; that’s why she always does it. She pushes one towards Adora, and her black nailpolish shimmers in the dappled lighting, and begins to set up her own piles so that they can play Spit. Adora watches for a moment, entranced, before pulling her own stack towards her and mirroring Catra’s actions, if a little less smoothly. “What happened, then?”

Catra frowns. She keeps her eyes on the piles of cards she’s sorting. “And then I drowned. Sort of. I just kept sinking, except eventually it wasn’t water, but all just white. And then you found me. Or I crawled my way up. I can’t remember. But when I saw you, you screamed and asked what happened to my face and my arm, and I looked down and it was all cracked with the white light and my arm was a shadow, and then I woke up.”

It sounds familiar, like Adora’s been expecting Catra to say this all along. “Creepy,” she says thoughtfully.

“I know, right?” Catra twists her face up in thought. “Wanna make friendship bracelets after this?”

The next summer they bunk together. Adora keeps Catra’s medication in her suitcase under the bed so no one sees it; they play cards and talk about their year and promise they’ll always be friends and sometimes — sometimes they talk about their weird dreams, fractured by white-purple light and a sense that they should be angry with each other, even though they aren’t.

One winter, when they’re fifteen, Catra begs her father into driving her up to the mountains for a week to visit Adora. She packs an obnoxiously red coat and brings her cat ears, even if she’s stopped wearing them at school. Adora talks about the Ski Resort nearby that her mom Light Hope runs and Catra replies that she wants to learn how to snowboard.

They make hot chocolate one evening in the kitchen, and Catra watches Adora stir the powder into the pot as they gossip about their friends from camp. “Sea Hawk said you’ve been getting into comics lately,” Adora says, acting like it doesn’t bother her Catra didn’t mention it.

Catra drums her hands on the kitchen counter. She shrugs. “I’ve been drawing a lot of super heroes lately,” she corrects. “Sea Hawk just wants me to read comics with him.”

Catra watches as Adora turns to look at her; she tucks a hair behind her ear self conciously. “What?” she says, as Adora’s gaze grows softer, something unmistakably gentle.

“I just wanna see, that’s all,” says Adora.

Catra twists her mouth into a nervous expression. “They’re not very good,” she says, and Adora rolls her eyes and jabs at Catra’s stomach in response. It hits — Catra makes a little _ oof _ noise and drops her jaw with an exaggeratedly betrayed expression. “What was that for?”

“You can draw,” replies Adora, and Catra reaches out to kick her. 

Adora dodges and squeals. “You’re gonna spill the hot chocolate, stop!”

“Didn’t stop you,” shouts Catra in response, but she stops all the same and tucks her head into the crook of Adora’s neck. Adora leans her own head on top of Catra’s, just slightly, and they stay there for a moment, rocking. “I’ll show you, though,” offers Catra, finally, and pulls away to open her sketchbook.

Over the pages, over and over again, is her villain: a blonde woman clad in white, with a gold emblem on her chest, and eyes raging red with matching bulging veins. Adora swallows suddenly; she doesn’t understand why her heart begins to race. “I don’t know her name,” Catra says, “but it’s gonna be something like _ She-Ra.” _

A chill goes over Adora, looking at the tiara with the wings attached to the side of the woman’s head. Her vision splinters for a moment — she could swear that cracks of purple-white light grow in the corner of her eye. “What’d you say?”

“Freya?” says Catra. “Something like that, anyway. Something kind of Norse. Is it any good?”

“The art?” Adora blinks; the feeling clears. “Yeah, yeah. This is awesome.”

Over the summer Adora brings up Catra’s villain: “Hey, do you remember that weird blonde woman with the tiara you used to draw?”

Catra’s sitting with her head in Adora’s lap, staring at the top of the wooden bunk. There’s a nail sticking out of one of the rafters. She wonders what it would be like to pull on it. Outside, a bird sings loudly, and the bugs are chittering. “What?” she says, frowning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The one with the red veins and eyes, who looked super evil. She had a giant sword?”

Catra lifts her head to make eye contact with Adora, who’s creasing her forehead with an unexplainable expression. Nostalgic, if nostalgia could be afraid at the same time, maybe. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, and shrugs awkwardly, the tops of her shoulders hitting Adora’s thighs.

“Weird,” replies Adora, frowning. “You drew her a bunch.”

“Huh.”

At the end of that summer, they vow to text — and they do. Adora wouldn’t be able to recall what they say, though, only that her moms and Razz always complain that she’s on the phone all the time.

In January, Adora turns sixteen just as a snowstorm comes in. She sits propped up against some pillows and her palm cupping her chin, watching the snow billow by. She’s always liked winter and the cold that flushes her cheeks, that numbs the tip of her nose. Behind her, Mara is making hot chocolate, and Razz is sneaking marshmallows into her mouth, and the presents on the kitchen table are beginning to become too tempting to let sit any longer.

Her phone buzzes._ hbd, _ writes Catra, short and to the point.

_ Wow you do care about me, _ Adora writes back. Catra’s response is almost immediate: _ ehhh idk. _

She laughs, and the sound is clear and bright, and everything is perfect. It’s a perfect birthday. Then her phone buzzes again. _ she-ra, _ says the text message from Catra. Adora blinks. Her sight goes fuzzy; the world splinters and glows purple and white at the edges. _ SHE-RA _ . She checks the text again, and it says, _ ur okay ig _and she smiles warily, confusedly— 

Something stutters, stops:

There’s a snowstorm when Adora turns sixteen; Catra’s a little mad she can’t drive her dad’s pickup to come see her, but she’s placated by the knowledge Adora likes that kind of weather. It rains down underneath the mountains, closer to the coast, and Catra snapchats her pictures of tree trunks that have turned brown-black with water.

_ hbd, _ she texts, and the response comes barely a second after her message: _ Wow you do care about me. _ It makes her crack a smile, look out at the rainy weather and feel her cheeks heat a little.

_ i miss u, _ she types, and then deletes. _ ehhh idk, _ she writes instead, staring warmly down at her text messages. ur okay ig, she adds, because she knows it’ll make Adora smile, and everything is perfect—

A clap of thunder sounds through the house. She jumps, catches her reflection in the mirror, and for a second half her face is in shadow, splintered by purple-white light, and she has ears, a tail, and then she blinks, and she just looks scared. She sighs and presses the palms of her hands into her eyes until she sees shapes with her eyes closed.

Everything is fine. Everything is perfect. Don’t ruin it, Catra.

She opens an eye. She has a text from Adora. _ SHE-RA. _

Her phone clatters to the floor, and she pulls in her knees. It’s happening again. It’s happening again, and she doesn’t want to go back, she wants to stay here, where everything is perfect, and Adora still loves her, and it’s raining and she’s happy, why can’t she be happy, and thunder booms again—

After their last camp session ever — Adora’s eighteen now, and Catra’s seventeen — Adora stays with Catra for a week in Long Beach. They visit the ocean, and neither of them swim — they just stare at the waves and dip their feet in and talk about playing cards, if either of them had remembered to bring a deck.

The sun beats down onto their shoulders; Adora burns and Catra doesn’t. Adora makes fun of Catra for not knowing what a training bra is — “you used to wear one, back when we first met, you let me borrow it once” — and Catra teases Adora for not figuring out that Catra’s trans until a year after they met.

They laugh in the sun and don’t think about college or moving or anything else. Adora keeps wanting to ask if Catra will visit her; Catra keeps wanting to ask if Adora will stay another week after this one.

Later, Mara will complain that Adora never tells her anything and ask Catra to recall the week’s events. Catra will pause, confused: her memory will be bathed in fragmented white-purple light and she will be frustrated. She’ll only be able to call a few perfect memories, and will hate herself for being unable to remember the whole thing. For example: Adora looking back towards Catra in a red bathing suit. Her hair has gotten lighter, her skin more tanned, and she’s laughing, beckoning. The chatter of other swimmers at the pool fills the air between them, and in the background, people test the concrete beneath her feet for warmth. “Catra,” calls Adora, giggling, “come on!” She takes a running jump towards the pool, but the water is pixelated and white-purple around the edges of her memory.

Catra knows — just as well as Adora — that she’d just sit on the side while Adora cools down from the heat, making fun of Adora’s form while Adora splashes her. They both know this, but neither can recall it happening besides the lingering feeling that it _ should have. _

Another perfect memory that Catra can barely recall: They’re in a park, and Adora’s sitting on a picnic blanket in high-waisteds and a band t-shirt, laughing the same way, offering a piece of bread. There’s a slight breeze that rustles her hair; it tickles her nose and she scrunches it up. Catra’s also wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt with little skulls on it, and she’s complaining about how the long grass tickles, and they’re both laughing, and ignoring the white blank sky.

Or another, when Catra takes Adora to a house party: Adora’s got her hair up and dancing like a fool; she doesn’t care that she doesn’t know anyone else here. She’s in a stupid pair of bright red short-shorts that make her unshaven legs look long, and Catra, on the other hand, is in a pair of black jeans and a t-shirt that Adora keeps saying looks good on her. Adora doubles over, presumably laughing at the expression Catra is giving her, an expression of embarrassment, but of fondness, too. In the shadows, Catra keeps thinking that her arm is corrupted, somehow, but it’s just the flashing lights of the party. It’s just the flashing lights.

A third: Adora’s underneath a blanket, and she’s laughing, but groggy, too, and there’s a space in the bed that is shaped like Catra, as if she’s just gotten out. There’s a window, just beyond Adora, that shows a purple-white spider web cracked sky, and Catra loves whatever this sky should be, this Adora, and distinctly remembers wishing she could see her like this every night. 

Catra will remember that throughout the whole week, they both have a feeling they won’t see each other for a while; when Adora looks at Catra, half in shadow, she gets a strange feeling, like she’s remembering a much more distorted version of her best friend. When Adora puts her hair in a ponytail, a pin in her red corduroy jacket flashing, for a moment Catra remembers a different badge — a green one, decorated with a pair of bat wings.

They write this off as normal. This is their last summer together, and otherwise it’s perfect; they desperately want it to be normal.

When Mara asks what happened, Catra will remember these strange memories sandwiched by perfect ones, and will hate herself for not trying to hold onto this perfect world longer. She’ll laugh over the phone and say, “We just hung out, that’s all,” and pretend that one of her hands doesn’t look so frightening bathed in shadow.

“Hey, Adora,” says Catra, sometime in college — it’s hard to remember when unless Adora focuses hard enough. Catra’s face is half in the dark. Adora startles, then laughs as Catra steps into the light, completely normal, freckled, wearing cat ear headband and a matching tail. She’s got one eyebrow raised, a half-smile quirking up the left corner of her mouth. She’s holding a bottle of wine in her right hand.

Catra walks into the Halloween party and grimaces. Truthfully, Catra doesn’t really like these things; she likes Adora, though, who’s grinning like a maniac and in that insipid Thor knockoff costume she probably picked up at a Halloween store, and though Catra thinks Halloween parties are cheesy, Adora’s smile makes the situation a whole lot more bearable.

“Do you want anything to drink?” asks Adora, collecting Catra’s bottle of wine and moving towards the kitchen to — presumably — open it. Catra can smell alcohol on her breath; she’s already tispy.

“No more than I want to know who you’re dressed as.” Red cape, white dress with a gold flower-star-thing on the chest, bicycle shorts, a crown with wings — all familiar in a way she can’t put her finger on. She likes Adora’s hair down, though; only Adora would look good in those cheap twenty-buck pre-packaged costumes.

“She-Ra?” says Adora, and—

Catra’s heart skips a beat. SHE-RA. She squeezes her eyes shut and when she reopens them, there are cracks at the edge of her vision, white light fading in. Her right side feels wrong, and when she looks down, her arm is just a shadow, and she has claws, and Adora is different, too, and—

“What did you say?” she manages faintly.

“Just that I’m glad you made it?” Adora cocks her head; she must not have even heard Catra’s question. She looks like Catra’s made her evening perfect now with a halloween party with her favorite people. It’s true; Adora’s happiness seeps into her and washes away any concern over a worsening memory. 

“Like I wouldn’t have come,” Catra snorts, pushing past Adora and into the party. She casts a look back at Adora, frowning like she’s trying to recall where something looks so familiar. Adora shifts under her gaze. 

Adora laughs when she realizes that Catra’s a cat. “You used to get mad at me for calling you catlike.”

“I also wore cat ears for, like, three years.”

Adora snorts at the memory. She’s happy, really happy here — this evening, nevermind that she can’t figure out when it’s happening, is perfect; the girl she loves is perfect. “Well,” she says, unable to keep herself from smiling, “your costume looks good. If a little low effort.”

Catra opens her mouth with an overly exaggerated offended expression. _ “Mine _ is low effort? What’s your costume, anyway? She-Ra?”

Adora’s mouth snaps shut. The world stutters, stops — a flash of purple spiderweb cracks over reality — 

“What did you say?”

“Thor knockoff? You need to get your ears checked.”

Adora laughs, hollow. “Right! The music’s just loud.” She looks down at her own costume. SHE-RA. The sandals, the white dress — MARA. What’s going on? Why is she — when she looks back up at Catra, there’s something wrong with her face shrouded in darkness, flickering, corrupted—

Catra lunges forward. “Adora, are you—”

MARA. SHE-RA. It’s happening again.

When Adora tries to recall her early adulthood, all she can remember is dream, or maybe a memory:

She’s in Catra’s arms. She’s not sure if this is the corrupted-catlike-Catra that she’s imagined, or her real human girlfriend, but they’re rocking to soft music. Adora’s eyes are closed and buried in her shoulder. Catra smells like sweat and deodorant — nothing special, nothing unusual, but achingly familiar. “Don’t go,” whispers Catra into her ear.

Somehow, Adora knows that if she had opened her eyes, the room would be splintered in cracks of white-purple light.

But time marches forward.

Catra inspects the paint that’s starting to chip on the window. Adora keeps saying she wants to paint it “sea foam” — not even a real color, in Catra’s opinion — to match the view outside. Catra wants to repaint it white. It’s a stupid argument they keep getting into over the takeout they eat on the dusty, bare living room floor.

Everything is simple, easy, perfect: the small town charm, the cheap house falling apart. The summer heat, coming in waves, and Adora in jean cut-offs and brandishing a hammer. Sweat rolls off Catra’s forehead. She ties up her bushy hair with a red bandana ‘cause her hair ties are stuck in some box somewhere.

At night, they lie out in the grass and look at the stars. Adora knows all the names for them. She points out the constellations, too, and tells Catra their stories, even though Catra’s heard them a thousand times by now. Or — she must have; she can’t remember learning them, but she knows she knows them. She can’t remember what happened between now and college, either just that —

She closes her eyes and opens them again. “What’s that one,” she says to Adora, pointing in no specific direction.

“She-Ra,” says Adora.

Chills down her spine. “What did you just say?”

“I said that I couldn’t tell where you were pointing.”

“Oh.” Catra shifts her gaze up and scrubs at her eyes before letting them focus again. The stars align to write MARA and her vision goes fuzzy for a moment. No. No no no. MARA. SHE-RA. No. No, everything is perfect, no—

Adora closes her eyes and it is daylight again.

JUST MARRIED, says their car parked in the driveway. The beach house is still falling apart. Somehow, it unsettles her that there hasn’t been much of a change in time — she finds it confusing she’s unsettled at all. Adora smiles, regardless, because the house is still there, because she can see Catra scrubbing the living room floor from the window, and waits for Catra’s head to tilt up and to catch her eye. As if on cue, Catra looks up and waves. 

Adora lifts the paint — she’d ditched the “sea foam” and gone for white, like Catra initially wanted. Catra cocks her head for a moment, and Adora gestures, and then, with understanding, comes a smile that splits Catra’s face, triumphant, pleased, content. She walks up to the window and rests against it.

“She-Ra!” she shouts, and Adora’s heart stops.

“What?”

“I said, Adora?”

She blinks. Catra’s image flashes, overlaid over another Catra, a catlike Catra with half her face missing, split and splintered by light. SHE-RA. Her eye is blue-screen blue, her arm just a shadow, and the world is falling apart around them; Adora is panting, heart pounding, and Catra’s voice is —

She blinks. The world is normal again.

“Sorry,” she calls up to Catra, who shakes her head.

“Don’t drop the paint, babe. Can’t have you going back and changing your mind.”

Adora laughs and rolls her eyes, looks back to the car. MARA, it says, where it said JUST MARRIED before, and then there is no car, and the light is cracking open the world and the space between them, and she’s calling her wife’s name, again and again as they fall apart, and the ground crumbles away—

Adora wakes up in Catra’s arms. “Where am I?” she says, holding her head.

“We’re at the farmer’s market,” replies Catra, looking down at her with a concerned expression. “We’re getting ingredients for dinner at Mara and Light Hope’s.” She cups Adora’s cheek gently, and some part of Adora leans into it like she’s missed this tenderness, as if Adora hasn’t had this tenderness her whole life. “Do you not remember this? Did you hit your head when you fell?” Catra’s eyes get wide. “Do you have brain damage?”

Adora swats her hand away. “No, I don’t have brain damage. Just — where—”

Catra’s eyes soften. “You’re figuring it out.”

“What?” But Catra’s already blurring before her eyes, and the world is already getting light, and suddenly Adora wonders if Catra’s voice this entire time has been distorted, or if something’s wrong, and Catra has ears and a pitch-black half-face, and Adora’s world is splintering, and—

When she falls again, Catra’s holding her. “The portal,” Catra urges her. “The portal.”

“What’s going on?”

Catra tips her head; again her form flickers between human and cat and corrupted cat. “I’ve been trying to hold this world together so you would remember. Razz said you needed to remember.” She buries her head into Adora’s shoulder. “I made a perfect world for you, so that it would not hurt.”

Adora swallows something. “It wasn’t real?”

“Look around, Adora. Does it look real to you?”

Adora looks around; the world is falling apart. They’re on a patch of land that reminds her suspiciously of the clearing they used to sit in and play cards when they were at camp together. She can see that tiny pier that looks over blank white space instead of a lake. She swallows. “Catra,” she says.

“I thought—” Catra swallows. “I thought if we had to do this again, if I had to become this again—” her form flickers: it looks like shadow is beginning to bloom across her chest “—that at least we could have this perfect world, if only for a little bit.” She sighs and hugs Adora closer. “You have to find the sword again.”

  
“Again? Where’s Mara—”

“Gone, probably.”

“Gone where?”

Catra slaps Adora slightly, enough to sting but not enough to truly hurt her. “You need to remember, Adora. Pull it together.”

Adora rubs at her cheek. The leaves around her are disintegrating into light, turning purple and pixelated before disappearing altogether. Catra’s arms around her tighten as a piece of her shadowed hand — a finger — breaks off and flickers, disappearing like the leaves. “Catra!” she shouts, alarmed, and Catra shivers beside her.

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. You’re—”

Catra flexes her hand. She’s missing her ring finger. Adora wonders what happened to their wedding bands; the thought makes her ache. “Adora, look. I made it this far, didn’t I? Last time, I clawed my way out the portal out of pure spite. I can help you. Just — you need to remember what to do.”

“Don’t you remember?”

Catra pauses. “Too much of me was — is — portal. I don’t—” She clenches her fist, frustrated. “I know what happened, but that’s not the same thing. You need to remember. You aren’t — a part of you isn’t—”

Adora closes her eyes and screws up her mouth. She needs to remember something. All her life, she’s been forgetting something. She knows this. Catra, beside her, knows this. Around her, the world is terribly silent — Catra’s stopped breathing, maybe because the shadow has taken her lungs and mouth. The silence reminds her of something horrible, something she cannot forget, no matter how hard she tries. She takes a deep breath.

A tear rolls down her cheek; it was perfect here. She does not want to leave, but she remembers how to.

She stands. Catra stands with her. “I need to go to the sword. If you’re — if you’re part of the portal—”

Catra nods, understanding. “I can bring it to you,” she suggests. Her voice is so strange: kind and distorted, all at once. “I just have to jump through—” She waves at the water.

Adora feels a sting of something. “No.”

“Adora—”

“Catra.” Her voice does not waver. “I never got to swim with you at camp, did I,” she adds, as if this makes the prospect of jumping into the portal that much better. Catra reaches out her hand, the one that is still flesh. Suddenly, the catlike appearance of Catra does not make her balk, but she finds it incredibly comforting; this is how they are meant to be. “Let’s do a cannonball?”

Catra rolls her eyes. “You are so lame,” she says. And then, “on the count of three?”

Adora nods. “Three.”

“Two,” they chant together. “One.”

They run hand in hand past the pier, not stopping to jump when they reach the end. Adora instinctively curls up, waiting for an inevitable splash that does not come; instead she watches at the world around her fades and Catra’s hand in her own becomes less steady, less — present.

Or maybe her hand in Catra’s. She looks down; they aren’t falling anymore. They don’t seem to be moving at all, but their hair whips around their faces as if they are, somehow, still plummeting through air. She notices, with some detachment, that her own hand is getting corrupted. Adora takes a breath of air in, and then a breath of air out.

She looks over at Catra, whose eyes are closed peacefully. More of Catra’s corrupted arm is folding away.

“We need to find the sword,” she shouts, as if there’s the noise of air whooshing past them to shout over.

Catra looks at her serenely. “You need to find the sword,” she corrects. “If I don’t see that thing again, I think I’ll die happy.”

“You’re not going to die,” snaps Adora. “You can’t. I—I need you.”

Catra pulls Adora close. “Find the sword,” she says.

Adora squeezes her eyes shut to stop tears from falling. “Not without you. Please, Catra. Not without you.”

Catra seems to be growing limper. She feels her own hand becoming not hers, and a part of the portal collapsing around her; Adora screams in frustration. They still haven’t landed. She’s losing her hand. Catra’s losing herself. The sword isn’t here, and all there seems to be is a never-ending fall.

“Catra,” she shouts, shaking Catra’s body.

Catra barely reacts.

“Catra, I won’t lose you.”

No response.

“CATRA!” she screams again, and feels something in her heart lurches. _ I’m not giving up. Not yet. _

The world solidifies under her feet, and they tumble through grass. They are where Adora landed in empty Etheria; Adora knows this instinctively as if she’s summoned it. Above her, the sword is pulling apart the world. Below her, Catra lies unresponsive at her feet. Her mind races — what does she have to do to save Catra’s life?

_ Destroy the sword. _

Somehow, the thought comes to her fully formed, as if she’s known all along that the gateway to the portal has been stored there. She hates herself for taking so long to figure it out and is incredibly grateful that secret knowledge has revealed itself to her. Her hand shoots up and she feels a light magnetic force towards the weapon.

It takes everything in her to increase that force and draw the sword to her, like pulling on a taut rope connected to a boulder. Her shoulders strain and her fingers flex. She screams again, this time because of the effort, and because Catra’s chest is not rising and falling the way it should be.

“Fuck!” she shouts, at the sword falls into her hand and she becomes She-Ra without wanting to. The transformation is nearly painful because of the power she’s controlling. She knows that her skin is shadow-black and also iridescent, like an oil spill, and doubles over because of how much energy there is inside her.

“CATRA,” she screams again, as she falls to her knees beside the only girl she’s ever loved. Tears spring into her eyes. “Why did you come back for me? Why did you come back?”

Catra stirs, just for a moment, opening the one eye remaining that is hers and not corrupted. She smiles weakly, but that is enough — Adora understands what she means to say. She can close the portal but wield the sword, but —

The portal will always want Catra, so long as it is able to be opened. She has returned too many times. She has fallen through its impossible emptiness too many times and clawed her way out. As Catra looks unblinking up at her, she does not ask Adora to choose between being She-Ra and being with Catra herself.

Adora does not care; she knows what she will choose.

She takes her corrupted hand and her own hand, both iridescent and painful and making her stiff and sore and clutches the handle of the Sword of Protection. She shoves it downward with all the force in her body — she closes her eyes while it shatters.

It does not make a noise when it breaks, but the force of it topples her, and she dives onto Catra.

_ When the light clears, Adora’s holding Catra — or maybe Catra’s holding Adora; they’re too tangled up into each other to really be able to say. They’re breathing heavy breaths, exhausted and uncertain. Scattered around them is the fragments of a far too familiar sword, broken beyond repair, which glints in Bright Moon’s sunlight. _

_ Bright Moon. _

_ Adora looks up for a moment, filled with wonder. She’s back in Bright Moon — the right one, the alive one — and the sudden relief she feels to be surrounded by friends and Catra makes her sag again. Catra’s breathing heavily, like she didn’t expect to live. _

_ “I’ve got you,” she murmurs into Catra’s ear. “I wouldn’t have left you.” _

_ “But Horde Prime,” gasps Catra. “Horde Prime’s still coming.” _

  
  
_Adora closes her eyes and rests against Catra. Glimmer peers at them both nervously, as if they’re too delicate to move. “We’ll figure it out,” Micah says loudly. “All of us. Together, we’ll figure it out.”_


	8. violets

It takes exactly two days for Horde Prime to contact Bright Moon. Catra stares at his face, his many eyes, listening to his voice crackle over the bad video quality. He’s monstrous, awfully similar to Hordak in a way that makes Catra’s skin crawl, like she knows he’s  _ worse. _ She watches the message he sends to Bright Moon more times than anyone else, in a loop, lounging in the throne room.

She stares at him for hours. He eats up her time, her thoughts, her energy.

It’s not like she sleeps, either; all she dreams of are memories from the portal and Horde Prime’s cool, haunting voice. It’s better to stay awake as long as possible and pass out from exhaustion. At least then she won’t dream. No one’s stopping her, either, because no one has noticed.

Adora might notice, but—

She keeps avoiding Adora.

It’s not intentional: when she sees Adora, something in her heart flutters and she turns the opposite corner. She can’t bring herself to make eye contact. She ignores the knocks on her door at night that she knows are Adora’s, because they’re so familiar to her.

  
That’s the problem. That’s the reason Catra keeps watching Horde Prime on a loop, when everyone else thinks there’s nothing left to study and moves on to do other Bright Moon things. That’s what holds Catra to her chair when everyone else decides to be productive in their worry.

It’s just—

Everything with Adora is  _ familiar _ and  _ complicated. _ Everything in Bright Moon is familiar. Catra has a history with everyone and everything here, except for that monstrous person on her tablet screen, with a grating voice and horrible laugh. Everyone here has some sort of complicated relationship with Catra, especially Adora. Catra knows she loves Adora; on some level, she knows Adora loves her. Their relationship is built on familiarity — she’s grown up with Adora twice now. Those memories aren’t going to burn away. It’s not about that love or familiarity. It’s about whether or not Catra’s worth it.

And truthfully, Catra’s not sure she’s worth it.

So she keeps watching Horde Prime, trying to keep her mind off of the issue at hand.

Regardless, there’s a lot to do. Since Light Hope is offline, Adora’s training with Micah, and Mara is mourning Light Hope and trying to reboot her, and Glimmer is going crazy with Angella, trying to come up with a plan for Horde Prime. Catra helps, when she can. “He’s requesting two ambassadors,” snaps Glimmer, once. “And Mom, you’re needed here.”

“You know I’ve already volunteered,” adds Catra, if unhelpfully, looking up from her tablet, where the video continues on a loop. It’s silent, but she’s already memorized the words. “I mean. I was raised by Hordak — it might show some respect, or something. Or just give me an advantage in figuring out how to defeat him.”

“I still don’t believe you don’t want to join him,” says Glimmer.

Catra shrugs. She smiles with too much teeth. “Guess you’ll have to trust me, Sparkles.”

Angella quirks a brow at Catra, as if unimpressed. Maybe she should have directed that statement to Bright Moon’s queen, not its princess. It’s obvious to anyone with a good head on their shoulders that Glimmer’s in charge of the war effort, anyway. All Angella seems to do is ask Glimmer to plan a little more, or something. Catra’s not quite sure. She levels a steady gaze at Angella.

Glimmer looks conflicted for a moment, glancing between them, then nods. “You would have betrayed us already, wouldn’t you?”

Catra’s ears flick. Her smile turns a little more genuine. 

At night, Adora knocks on Catra’s door. Catra doesn’t respond; it kills her. She’s not even sure if Catra’s in her room, but Adora hasn’t been able to see Catra anywhere, and—

She heaves a sigh and turns. It’s not worth it. She’s been trying to catch Catra for days. Dimly, she realizes her knuckles are still aching from training earlier, and she’s worsening the ache by balling her fist. Micah’s been teaching her spells along with Glimmer in hopes that, as She-Ra, Adora might have some power. It’s not working, really; Adora can barely keep up She-Ra’s form, anyway. Micah’s been really nice about it, though. He tells her he’s proud of her, even when she messes up, and that she’s not defined by what she can do, but by the effort she puts in.

It makes her feel a little bit better, but not by much. Mostly, she wants to complain to Catra. It’s like losing a limb for a second time: raised with Catra once again, and then torn from her. She scrubs at her face, and turns, not wanting to go to bed despite the late hour, but unsure what else to do.

She wanders. In her other hand, she clutches the closest Bright Moon has to the deck of cards they used to play. Of her foggy memories, that stands out the clearest. She thumbs through them as she wanders, feeling the edges of the cards against her nail. 

Torches lining Bright Moon’s walls cast long, flickering shadows as she walks.

She finds herself, eventually, drawn to a quiet murmuring: a low voice, almost staticky, coming from the throne room. It’s a voice that reminds her almost of Hordak; maybe that’s what pulls her towards it. She hasn’t been doing a good job of handling more than one person at a time, lately. Glimmer says it’s because she spent so much time alone. She also hasn’t been able to bring herself to talk to Hordak.

All she’s really been able to do is find a routine and stick to it like it’s the only thing holding her together.

In a way, it is.

As she steps closer, the noise becomes clearer, until she can make out snippets of sentences.  _ “Two ambassadors”  _ and  _ “my ship” _ and  _ “a pleasure” —  _ from this, she knows exactly what she’s listening to. It’s Horde Prime’s message, sent to Bright Moon. She’s not surprised by this. She probably should have figured it out from the voice alone. Adora’s probably the only one in the castle who hasn’t been able to listen to it all the way through.

Now, though? Now, for some inexplicable reason, she wants nothing but to listen a little longer.

As she creeps forward, she’s surprised to see Catra curled up in a chair, body twisting around a screen. She looks up, and as her gaze lands on Adora, Adora freezes in the doorway of the room. Something unreadable passes over Catra’s face; it’s an expression Adora’s used to seeing right before Catra attacks, a guarded  _ something _ Adora’s never been able to figure out. Then Catra’s expression smooths, and silently she beckons for Adora to step forward and, presumably, listen with her.

Adora follows Catra’s silent command, sitting next to her gingerly as Catra leans forward and places the tablet on the table in front of them. All this time, Horde Prime has been speaking, unpaused, discussing the need for  _ ambassadors  _ and  _ negotiation _ and  _ joining an empire _ with a gravelly voice that makes the hair on the back of Adora’s neck stand on edge.

Catra’s eyes are glued to the screen, but Adora finds herself watching Catra. Her hair is up in a ponytail, and the dim blue light of the screen carves out the shape of her slender neck. She remains perched, stiff but not uncomfortable, studying Horde Prime as he speaks in his graying tone, over and over and over.

The message repeats at least three times before Catra pauses it and turns to Adora. “I’ve never seen you that still or quiet for that long.”

Adora blushes and fidgets in her seat. “Were you watching me?”

Catra shrugs. “Maybe.”

“I actually hadn’t heard the whole thing before. I guess I’ve been avoiding it.”

Catra blinks, slowly, then nods. “It’s hard at first, isn’t it?”

Adora knows exactly what she’s talking about, even though Catra doesn’t provide any context. A rush of calm fills her, at this familiarity; she’s forgotten how much she relied on it in the portal to keep her from feeling completely alone. Especially in moments like now, when they weren’t properly talking. “I keep having to spend some time alone in my room,” she admits. “I didn’t realize how long it’s been since…”

“Since there was more than one person.” A bitter laugh. “I had so many fucking headaches,  _ and _ I was stuck in a weird light cell thing.”

“I heard you convinced them to deal with Shadow Weaver.” Adora scratches the back of her neck. “Thanks. That must have sucked.”

A look of surprise flashes over Catra’s face for a moment. Then she relaxes, and shrugs. “It was mostly Micah. I just...yelled at Glimmer.” She has an expression, though, that makes Adora certain her assessment was right: it must have really, really sucked.

Adora frowns, then nods. “I just. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Glimmer went to Shadow Weaver before...you know, before we got stuck. And then...with you, I don’t know, here, and me there, and I was just so—” She stops. “It’s late. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I guess that knowing you’re here has made the transition easier, even if we haven’t been able to talk.”

“You mean even if I’ve been avoiding you. Cut the bullshit, Adora.”

Adora bites at her lip, then exhales loudly. A hair that’s fallen from her ponytail blows out in front of her nose. “I didn’t want to yell at you, I guess. I’m not...I’m not angry.”

Catra gives her a flat look.

“I’m not. It’s so...complicated out here.”

“‘Complicated’ is one word for it.”

“Stop it,” Adora says desperately. She fights the urge to slump over the table and cry, to shake Catra, to — worst of all — to kiss her. She hugs herself instead, searching Catra’s gaze in the low light. Her voice is more broken than she’s expecting when she uses it again. “Stop it. I don’t want to yell at you.”

“We yell at each other all the time.”

“We  _ yelled _ at each other all the time, in the portal,” corrects Adora, beginning to feel annoyed. “But in the world you built for me—”

“—I built it out of our dreams, so it wasn’t that hard,” Catra hurries to say, looking like she’s blushing a little in the soft glow of the screen. Adora snorts.

“Whatever. In that world, we didn’t really yell at each other.”

Catra shrugs. “The difference between us there and us here is that here, I destroyed the world for you, and there I built a world for you. It’s only natural that here we’d yell at each other.”

“Are we yelling at each other now?”

“I don’t know, are we?”

Adora gets the feeling they’re fighting now, somehow, but can’t figure out how. She doesn’t say that aloud, though, even if she knows Catra’s thinking it. It feels too stupid an observation, especially because she can’t tell if it’s stupid because it’s obvious or because she doesn’t understand its implications. “Whatever, Catra. I should get to bed. I just thought…I don’t know. I just thought that if you did all that, that maybe I…Whatever. It’s not important.”

Catra pinches at the bridge of her nose. “You’re not allowed to ‘it’s not important’ me, Adora,” she says.

“Why not?” Adora replies flatly.

“I risked my life for you! Obviously it’s important!” Catra snaps.

“Not important enough to come see me, though!” shouts Adora, and then clicks her jaw shut with some surprise at how loud she’s being. She’s silent for a moment, breathing hard. Finally, she says, “Sorry, I know I said I wasn’t mad. I just—I just feel like somehow I’m not worth your time.”

Catra raises an eyebrow. “You’re not worth  _ my _ time? Adora, I made our whole relationship so fucking complicated.”

“I gave up being She-Ra for you,” Adora barrels on, not really acknowledging what Catra’s saying. They both made their relationship complicated. They were born into a complicated relationship. It makes her head hurt thinking about it. She doesn’t want to analyze it. She just wants— “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know,” says Catra desperately. “Have you ever known what  _ you _ wanted?”

“You really don’t know what I want, Catra?”

The look Catra gives her shatters her. Adora suddenly wants to reach out and hold her, bring their lips together — the thought is unbearable, watching at how Catra’s eyes turn sad and confused and angry all at once, how suddenly the bags under those eyes are stark and obvious. Catra looks tired. She looks full of longing. She looks like a stranger.

“If I knew, Adora, maybe I wouldn’t be so obsessed with this damn video,” she says, and pushes off her chair.

Adora rises, too, and grabs at Catra’s hand. Catra looks down as Adora takes hold of Catra’s wrist, surprised at the contact; Adora herself suddenly freezes at the warmth of it, at the desire to hold on and not let go. They stay there for half a second too long, neither able to move under the sudden desperate pull between them to move  _ closer. _ Adora stands in place until she trusts herself enough to let go. “I don’t know if it’s Shadow Weaver talking,” she says, voice quiet and afraid, “or if it’s Light Hope, or some destiny whispering in my ear like the ghost of the sword, or if it’s  _ me _ who wants to be She-Ra.”

Catra scoffs, and makes to move towards the door. “I should have guessed,” she says, under her breath.

“Wait,” says Adora, and makes a move to touch Catra again, hovering above her shoulder before snatching her hand away. “What I’m trying to say, is that I don’t know if I want to be She-Ra. What I do know is that I want to be with you.”

Silence again, and Catra turns towards Adora. “It’s complicated,” she warns.

Adora snorts again. “Trust me, I know.”

“There’s a war going on.”

“Again, trust me, I know.”

“Bright Moon might not approve.”

“Catra,” she whines, and puts her hands solidly on Catra’s waist. Catra’s eyes go wide at that, letting herself be pulled towards Adora as if by some magnetism. “Trust me, I know. I don’t care. It’s always been complicated, and it’s my fault, too. I’m so tired of—”

Catra doesn’t let her finish. She pulls Adora in for a kiss, and their teeth clack before it becomes a real kiss, desperate but gentle, as if nervous. Slowly it deepens, and Catra’s arms settle around Adora’s waist.

When they break away, they remain intertwined for much longer. Catra rests her head on the crook of Adora’s neck, breathing softly, and Adora moves her hand up to clutch at the back of Catra’s head. The embrace is tender, full of something unspeakably raw, like the two of them are trying to make up for all the miscommunication and missed signals and  _ bitterness _ they’ve waded through to get to this point. Adora can’t bring herself to move away. It’s as if she’s been waiting for this for much longer than she’s realized.

She can also wait a little longer. “If you still need time,” she begins to say, and frowns. “I know I needed time, and you waited for me, and took care of me, back in the portal. So if you need time now, I can wait. I will wait.”

Catra pulls back, startled. “What?”

“I’m just saying. You were avoiding me. If you’re not ready to—”

Catra pulls her in for another kiss, effectively shutting her up. “You’re such an idiot, Adora,” she says affectionately, and Adora breathes a sigh of relief.

“I just wanted to make sure. That we’re good.”

“Sleep in my bed tonight,” says Catra. “How’s that for good?”

Adora laughs, feeling lighter and giddy. “Alright. Yeah, alright.”

But there’s a war going on, and Catra has to leave again. Adora makes a face, but she never complains about how Catra volunteered to be an ambassador for Horde Prime. It’s like she was expecting it. Maybe she was. Nothing can last as good and safe between them. Not yet, anyway.

A time and place for Catra and Glimmer to leave has been scheduled for a couple weeks now, but before anyone knows it, they’re preparing to leave.

Catra rises from her bed that morning, and Adora watches her get up. They’ve taken to sleeping together. It’s not that unexpected; they’re both desperate to be in each other’s company for just a little longer. Even though Adora knows Catra has to go, she’s still desperate for just a little longer. Catra’s been the only thing really grounding her from the transition back to Bright Moon from the portal. It’s a little easier, because of the world Catra built her. She’d been a little more used to social interaction.

Still, it’ll be lonely and hard without Catra. Adora already has a hard time with it, even though Glimmer and Bow are trying so hard to help her. She just — she wishes she could come with Catra. She wishes—

“What’re you looking at?” 

Adora blinks. “You.”

Catra is taken aback by the abruptness of it. How certain and steady Adora’s voice is. How Adora’s gaze doesn’t drop away. She’s not ashamed. It makes her heart ache. There’s a war going on, and Catra has to leave, and this makes a lump in her throat grow, until she swallows it away.

Adora notices, though, and rises to hug Catra tight. She always notices, these days. Catra pulls Adora into the embrace, feeling Adora rest her head against the crook of her neck. “It’s going to be okay,” she says, and she’s not sure who she’s trying to convince. She thinks about it, though:

About Glimmer, who’s terrifying and powerful and a good ally; about Bow, who’s a surprisingly good strategist; about Entrapta’s genius and Micah’s skill and the princesses, who are unstoppably brave; about Adora, solid beneath her, who one day will be an incredibly powerful She-Ra, and how that doesn’t bother Catra as much as she thinks it should.

“Hey, you better come back,” Adora whispers into Catra’s shoulder, voice broken and scared anyway.

Catra, above her, barks a short laugh. “Adora, a rift in space-time couldn’t separate me from you. What’s a man gonna do?” Adora, below her, laughs as well, and for a moment the heavy air between them is cleared.

Somehow, Catra’s not surprised to realize she really does mean it. She’s gonna come back. There’s a war going on — but Catra’s certain they’re going to end it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thats a wrap :-) i had such a wonderful time writing this! hopefully the tone stays consistent, bc i took such long breaks from it.
> 
> this IS the end of the fic, even if the war doesnt end...maybe someday ill write a pt 2 to this, but for now, no. this fic was abt c/a & their relationship, and their relationship has become steady, so the fic has ended. i had a wonderful time writing it...thank u to everyone for ur support :-)
> 
> here are the flower meanings/chapter name meanings:  
\- forget-me-not: remembrance  
\- oleander: caution  
\- purple hyacinth: sorrow & forgiveness  
\- daffodils: new beginnings  
\- wallflower: faithfulness in adversity  
\- pink camellia: longing for someone & missing someone  
\- lavender: devotion & caution, historically a gay color  
\- violet: symbolism of being sapphic

**Author's Note:**

> BOY this is not usually my style! but i enjoyed writing it. a huuuge thanks to ana & lo who like...not only edited but sat thru my texts about this fic. if u liked it yell at me @ figbian either on tumblr or twitter OR u can comment below. lots of options.


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